Write on Edge: The Past

       From the too loud television in the family room she heard a song that took her back to Central Junior High. Her hips moved to the familiar tune as she washed the dinner dishes. She smiled when the guitar solo came in, thinking about the boys in the band who wore more makeup than her mother allowed her to in those days.
       She could smell the Aqua Net in the girls’ room and see the graffiti on the wall. She remembered the mean girls who wore Flashdance inspired sweatshirts and matching leg warmers. Her face flushed when she remembered getting teased about her own clothes back then. Trendy clothes that had hung on the clearance rack a little too long or outgrown by a more fashionable cousin. It took a few more years before she was comfortable with her own sense of style and stopped trying to follow trends her family couldn’t afford.
       There were good times of course. She bought her first vinyl albums: Duran Duran, Men at Work, The Police, Prince, and Billy Joel. She gained some independence, being dropped off the Riverdale Roller Rink to skate to “Gloria” and “Oh Mickey”. There wasn’t that kind of independence for her own children these days. Twelve seems too young to see a movie or wander a mall without a parent in the age of helicopter parenting.
       Her pre-teen son bopped into the kitchen looking for a snack (again).
       “Were they just playing Duran Duran on MTV?” She asked him. “I haven’t heard that song in ages.”
       “Huh?”
       “I thought I heard Hungry Like the Wolf.”
       “Oh, that was a yogurt commercial Mom.”




       So maybe I really am back in the saddle--it’s been a long time since I wrote any fiction. I’m linking up with Write on Edge for the first time in way too long. This week’s prompt is a quote, “The past is a foreign country: the do things differently there.” Please let me know what you think. Constructive criticism is always welcome.