Jostling boys kneel, letting paper vessels fall onto a fast-flowing spring. They rush alongside.
“Look!”
“Yes!”
Watching as one after another fails.
“Aagh…”
“Nooo!”
Foolscap wrecks; sodden testimonies to unsound work.
“What?!”
“Can’t be!”
Then quiet as one remaining papyrus yacht sails proudly by.
© 2109 northie
A Pencil Is Best 
It’s amazing how the boys’ experience is made so clear in so few words. Great job.
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Thank you! It’s amazing what a partial rewrite can achieve. 😉
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That is such an sweet and vivid scene. Great. 🙂
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I’m glad you enjoyed it. With a word limit of 44, you have to make every one count. 🙂
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I like the way you used dialogue in this to convey the boys’ emotions. There’s a clear sense of their excitement and disappointment and jealousy.
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Thanks, Asha. The dialogue only appeared after a rewrite. 😆
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You placed me at the stream with your evocative writing. Really nice.
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I’m glad you liked it. The present tense makes for immediacy, I think.
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This post took me down memory lane when we used to tear pages from books to make paper boats and in no time they would get wet and and lose shape.
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Thanks. I’m glad it came close to real life for you. 🙂
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I had to look up foolscap. LOL. I liked how the dialogue was fast and loose like how those paper boats were floating and wrecking. I missed that they were boys at first, but that was all on me…I missed it.
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Love the imagery you created here.
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