A couple weeks ago I posted I am Worldmaker. It was a first person flash piece based on the image above. As an exercise in point of view, this time I switched it all around, retelling it from a completely different perspective. What do you think?

Worldmaker: Take Two

The bathroom latch clicked closed, and the old woman turned to shuffle down the hallway. Her gaze swept her granddaughter’s door, the picture thumbtacked at eye level beckoning her to pause.

Pinned above the “No Trespassing” sign, the image was silly fantasy, of course. Not real art worthy of inspection. Or introspection. Yet, the crystalline gaze drew her near. The pale eyes compelled her tears and awakened a dormant longing at her core. There was power there, a dare, an offering, an accusation.

The gray woman blinked and held her breath as the unseen rip in her heart began to fray. What peered through that unraveling gap bore the annihilating finality of regret and death. For in that visage, she beheld the lapse of her youth, risks denied in the name of conformity and security, the dimming of her own light so that others might shine. Long ago, she’d settled for a deadening compromise with dull mediocrity.

Once she possessed that allure, the smooth sunless skin and full lips, the seductive tilt of her head that shadowed a temptress’s eyes. She too once held a blazing array of futures at her fingertips, worlds of her own making begging for birth. Why hadn’t she seen them, clutched them, owned the fiery possibilities poised above the palm of her hand?

How many years ago had she beckoned with that gaze, wielded her power and offered the sublime mysteries of an ardent heart? She’d dared her desire to turn away and he’d stayed. Yet, why had she stopped there? Why was that enough in a world of shifting boundaries? Why had she ceased feeding her life’s fires, watched the embers cool and turn to powdery ash?

The answer was no secret.

Her gnarled fingers trembled as she touched the petal-thin skin of her cheek, tracing the invisible runes. Other fingers had caressed that cheek, seen the indelible beauty in her soul. There were no regrets there, at least.

The ice-green eyes demanded her attention. The image extended her hand in offering, the power to create still awaiting her choice. She studied the picture for something she’d missed.

“Oh my,” she whispered, a hand to her lips.

A smile rose to the ancient face. She placed her fingertips on the burning globe, not on the world dying in a crimson inferno, but on the world newly born, the unfathomable promises and possibilities of an unknown future.

She untacked the picture from her granddaughter’s door. Respectful of the “No Trespassing” sign, she knocked, fully intending to engage in a bit of trespassing.

“What?” the teenage exasperation questioned from within.

The old woman opened the door, the image trembling in her extended hand. “I’d like to talk with you about this.”

Her pale-eyed granddaughter looked up, eyes fearless, blond hair falling forward and framing her face, her lips a perfect bow. She saw the picture in her grandmother’s hands and smiled. “I already know.”