PROMPT: It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season, that I encountered

Write using the style or mood of this phrase

Oct 19, 2022

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Leslie Ava Shaw

Rosalia decked to the nines left her domain ten minute early so she could take a leisurely walk to the site of the carnival, about a half a mile down the road. In the past, she always had to take the streetcar because the carnival was way towards Cox’s farm where the pumpkin patches created orange marks from afar. She was quite excited about walking on this most glorious of evenings, a Sunday to be remembered in the year of the Fox 1922. The evening was eventful because it was the first time she worked up the courage to wear her new dress that showed off her pale white legs. Before tonight, she had always worn long skirts. The velvet dress was crimson, another daring choice she had made when after having past it by in in the window of her favorite lady’s dress shop on several occasions, she worked up her courage to go in and try it on. It fit perfectly, was flattering to her figure, and she had her mother’s long pearls that her father had bought on his long journeys to the Far East. The pears had been a piece of jewelry that her mother had worn on special occasions. Her father had considered having her mother wear the pearls to her grave, but then thought better of it when he realized the fiscal value of it. Instead, he had Mommy wear the necklace he had purchased at the local jewelers.

Rosalia thought of her mother when she put those pearls around her neck, remembered how she would cough and wheeze and not get out of bed for days at a time. The passing of her mother affected her in more ways than she could imagine. Her mother was strict, but kind and loving. Rosalia admired her ability to juggle many tasks at once, such as At age twelve, she became the woman of the house. She had to go to school, look after her baby brother every morning by bathing him in the evenings and dressing him in the mornings to get ready for school. Then at the end of the school day, she had to rush home to prepare dinner for the three of them. She was lucky her mother had taught her a thing or two about cooking, beginning at age eight when Mommy believed Rosalia was old enough to turn on the stove, which she did willingly. Rosalia knew how to bake as well. She baked cookies and pound cake and bread, which was the hardest, but she remembered her training so that every morning Daddy and Billy could have toast and blackberry jam from Cox’s farm for breakfast.

She knew she was nearing the carnival when she could see red, blue, and green lights flickering and could hear the laughter and screams of children getting closer. She stopped for a moment to check her lips in the small mirror in her leather purse with the ivory handle. (Leslie Ava Shaw)

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