Missing Violet


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26th June 2021

Just a quick 250 word bit of flash fiction that I wrote in a spare hour for National Flash Fiction Day. See if you can spot all the easter eggs that I’ve thrown in… hint: think music, anagrams and colours!

“You’ll see me again,” Annie said, as she walked away. Then she turned abruptly and added, “In Rainbows.”

It took me years to work out what that meant. 

At first, I figured she was just being kooky. That was Annie’s way, after all. She was a hurricane. A twister. A changing wind; different in every way. Neon green tights with skulls intertwined in the thread. Pumpkin orange boots with laces long enough to tether a small dog. Her hair was yellow and long; black and shaved all at the same time. Tiny piercings peppered every part of her face. Hell, she wasn’t even called Annie. She was Indigo. Indigo Plantagenet.

I had caught her red-handed earlier that afternoon. Desperately searching through my drawers like a late-night burglar. She refused to speak when I asked what she was looking for. 

I’d had enough, it was over. She’d had a litany of chances; it was only the week before I’d caught her slipping my late father’s wedding ring into her pocket. I asked her why and once again was met with silence. Oh, dead air. 

And, almost as out of the blue as she had entered my life, she was gone. 

But for all these years, I kept her with me. On the days when the weather couldn’t make its mind up between piercing sunshine and crashing rain, I could feel her with me. And on those days of internal reflection, somewhere high above, I could see her. 

She was right.