LITERARY IMPULSE & PAPER POETRY ‘EUDAIMONIA’ PROMPT SUBMISSION

Sometimes I Get it Right

For the Little One (Prose)

To my Little One

We clamber through, you and I, with the hectic schedules of those always behind. Poor little thing, my darling, my love, you’ve started saying, ‘Sorry we’re late,’ by way of a greeting. And it breaks my heart to hear you already apologizing for being somewhere, anywhere, at any time.

This early morning, I was so proud of me. Fist-pumping myself in my mum-head for finding and bringing you to, your swimming lessons you’ve spent this covid-year dressing up for, but not going to. That on the way back, wrapped in your towels, I almost missed hearing you quietly ask, ‘Can you get a coffee in there?’

It was that drive-thru place, close to our home, that serves those bickies you don’t like, so I was confused.

‘Why darling?’ I asked, but something made me slow down, pull into the turning lane and indicate.

As I watched you in the mirror, your glowing smile lit up my soul as a thousand suns melted my organized heart. ‘Because they have a magic key,’ you answered.

To me, it’s just a plastic stopper from a coffee lid cup. But to you, my darling, it’s a very special, magic key — because I once told you it was;

that time when I gave one to you, to distract you or something, whilst I kept us on schedule for another something.

And I had forgotten, how inconsolably, devastatingly, distraught you were, when you lost your magic key.

But this morning I remembered

as I turned into the long coffee lane, knowing we’d be late for the next thing, but exuberant in not giving a fluffy-duck, because I knew: This time I got it right.

This time I got it right. This is my Eudaimonia.

Dedication: For my dearest little one, whose heart's desires are astonishingly simple.

Thank you, Carolyn Hastings, for inviting me to this beautiful prompt, Eudaimonia.

It was Carolyn’s own luxuriously meditative take on the prompt, that moved me to respond: