The Space Between Us

Intro

I wanted to see what could happen if I took five unrelated writing prompts and shape a single scene around them.

Here are the writing prompts I used:

• Leprechaun (#BlueskyRelay)
• Aching (#Emoetry)
• Goal (#vss365)
• Photo (#vssdaily)
• Crisp (#WildWalkPrompt)

The aim was to keep the moment grounded and let the writing prompts sit quietly inside it.

He handed me the photo without looking at it first. A shoebox find. Sun-faded. Crisp at the edges where the cardboard had protected it.

In the foreground I saw myself at twelve, grinning at the camera with no idea what that year would hold. In the background, a man in a cheap leprechaun suit stood near the park fountain. I had forgotten he existed until now.

My father rubbed his thumb against his palm the way he did when something ached deep inside.

“I had one goal that day,” he said finally. “To get you out of the apartment and into some light.”

He said it like it was nothing.

I kept staring at the photo, but all I could see was the space between us back then. Not broken. Not dramatic. Just the slow drifting that happens when people love each other but forget how to say it.

The leprechaun, the crisp spring air, the distant ache of that year. All tiny things compared to this one quiet truth: he had tried, even if I never noticed.

I slipped the photo back into the box and closed the lid gently.

“Let’s keep this one,” I said.