Flash Fiction # 29 - Tears Began To Fall… Again
- Jacob RD Johnson
- Dec 31, 2025
- 2 min read
Picture Prompt
300-word Flash Fiction
Post # 29
Week Ending: 1/2/2026
Genre: Drama
Title: Tears Began To Fall… Again
Holidays made Sydney Ferrier feel the loneliest. Seven years since her mom passed, six years since her dad restored a vintage red car for her sixteenth birthday, then deployed overseas on some top secret mission, and over three years since traveling across country, from all of her friends, to college.
Sydney sat alone in her cold, undecorated apartment and thought to herself, “T’was the night before Christmas and all through my home, not a person to hang with, not even a…” Her thought trailed off, unable to find a relevant rhyme.
“Gnome?” she said out loud and smiled ruefully.
Rather than moping around, Sydney got up to go buy a tree so she could wake up to something festive Christmas morning.
She slid into the adorable car her dad had given her and drove to the nearest tree lot. But when she arrived, there were no trees, and nobody around. She tried to find an artificial tree. No luck. Absolutely everything was closed late on Christmas Eve.
Dejected, Sydney headed home and cried in her bed.
Six hours later, a noise woke her. Frightened, she went to seek the source, though she wouldn't see clearly without contacts. Through the gap in her cracked open door, there appeared to be a mess on her living room floor. Somebody must've ransacked the place.
Panicked, she peered through the gap. A tall man moved about.
Her heart stopped.
Sydney looked down, just outside her bedroom and realized it wasn't a mess, it was a configuration she recognized with a red ornament and two candy canes placed together in the shape of a heart.
That meant one thing. She shoved her door open to reveal an apartment full of decorations, a tree, and presents.
“Daddy?!”
Their eyes met and tears began to fall… again.
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