A Flash Fiction by Matt Petras

In my grey sweatpants and navy blue sweatshirt, I climbed onto the armchair, placed my little hands on the top of the velvet chair and gazed out the window at the lights.

I saw streetlights, houses aglow with yellows and blues through their windows, cars beaming light at the road ahead of them. Red lights would come from the railway intersection. Traffic lights. Green. Yellow. Red.

Most prominent and highest, a small fire burned, wafting smoke into the air, at the top of a tall, thin chimney.

Pap walked into the room, a cup of tea in his hand. He saw me and smiled.

“When I first moved into this house, I would look out that window a lot too,” he said. He sipped his tea. “When I look out that window now, I see what that town used to be like, back when it was booming. I met your grandmother in that town. I see all of the delis you could get a great sandwich. I see the park that isn’t there anymore, where bands would play. Really great music.”

I looked at him. I smiled. I went back to the window.

“So what do you see when you look out that window, kiddo?”

The window chilled my tiny fingertips as I kept looking.

“I see lights.”

Matt Petras is a Pittsburgh-area writer and educator. His journalism has been published in The Daily Beast as well as local publications like PublicSource, Pittsburgh Current and The Mon Valley Independent. He is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing in Chatham University, focusing on fiction and concentrating in pedagogy.