{Malyss requested that I post more of my microfiction. Here's a piece that I wrote today that I'm not to sure about. I see microfiction in terms of a character study and I'm not sure if I've discovered this character yet.}
An Apocalypse in Miniature
Annie turned the snow globe over and watched the white plastic flakes float down upon the rural town scene. She laughed at the lack of scale. The flakes were taller than the church's steeple and a single flake covered the entire school's playground.
She missed her school's playground in the winter. She missed the wetness of the snow as it soaked through her mittens as she packed a snowball and threw it at Cheryl. She missed the sting of her hands as she warmed them above the radiator.
She missed Cheryl.
She wondered where Cheryl was. She cried as her dad had carried her from their house. He had woken her in the middle of the night before the sirens had started wailing. The only thing she managed to grab from her room was the snow globe.
Annie heard the murmur of their hushed conversation between her dad and another man in the hallway.
“We're lucky to have made it out,” her dad said, “Some families weren't so lucky. They didn't have the money to purchase a space.”
“That's a shame,” said the other man, “But there were a number of families that were too poor.”
Annie shifted on her cot and leaned against the cold cinder block wall. Far above on the surface, the snow of nuclear winter was falling on the blackened city.
Annie turned her snow globe over and looked at the sticker on the bottom. It read: From Cheryl