Short Story
9.1 Short Story – first draft
When I was just a little girl I got lost at a flea market. I was holding hands with my dad – at least I thought it was my dad. But then I looked up and saw the totally unfamiliar face of an apparently very surprised man that has definitely not been my dad. That was the moment when I realized that I had lost my parents. I looked left, right, left again, over to the candy stand and even underneath a bench – of course they weren’t sitting there waiting for me. I breathed heavily. I got misty eyes. And then I panicked. I already imagined myself spending the rest of my childhood in an orphanage, never seeing my beloved family again. They would be looking for me, of course, but when they wouldn’t be successful they finally would forget me. At least, that was what my mind was telling me at that moment.
Of course, this wasn’t how the story ended. My overly relieved parents (who were panicking themselves, too) eventually found me sitting at a balloon woman’s lap, crying.
And so it happened that a few years later, on a nice sunny winter day, I wasn’t languishing in some dull, dirty children’s home but I was going on a school trip to Switzerland to do snowboarding.
After a four hours bus travel we eagerly jumped out of the sticky bus, all excited to go up the hill and start skiing for the first time that winter. Boots laced up, jacked zipped, cap on the head – we were ready to go! The gently swinging cable railway took me and my friends to the top, but the higher up we went the worse the weather became. There was no evidence of the former sunny day anymore. It was all grey and cold.
But since the snow was being perfect – non-skid well rolled, non-icy – we didn’t let us put in bad mood. And so we started the first run. I was feeling incredibly free when I slid over the white, even piste. At the same time I experienced the feeling of exhilaration I always get when I go faster and faster and don’t know for 100% sure if things will work
When I was just a little girl I got lost at a flea market. I was holding hands with my dad – at least I thought it was my dad. But then I looked up and saw the totally unfamiliar face of an apparently very surprised man that has definitely not been my dad. That was the moment when I realized that I had lost my parents. I looked left, right, left again, over to the candy stand and even underneath a bench – of course they weren’t sitting there waiting for me. I breathed heavily. I got misty eyes. And then I panicked. I already imagined myself spending the rest of my childhood in an orphanage, never seeing my beloved family again. They would be looking for me, of course, but when they wouldn’t be successful they finally would forget me. At least, that was what my mind was telling me at that moment.
Of course, this wasn’t how the story ended. My overly relieved parents (who were panicking themselves, too) eventually found me sitting at a balloon woman’s lap, crying.
And so it happened that a few years later, on a nice sunny winter day, I wasn’t languishing in some dull, dirty children’s home but I was going on a school trip to Switzerland to do snowboarding.
After a four hours bus travel we eagerly jumped out of the sticky bus, all excited to go up the hill and start skiing for the first time that winter. Boots laced up, jacked zipped, cap on the head – we were ready to go! The gently swinging cable railway took me and my friends to the top, but the higher up we went the worse the weather became. There was no evidence of the former sunny day anymore. It was all grey and cold.
But since the snow was being perfect – non-skid well rolled, non-icy – we didn’t let us put in bad mood. And so we started the first run. I was feeling incredibly free when I slid over the white, even piste. At the same time I experienced the feeling of exhilaration I always get when I go faster and faster and don’t know for 100% sure if things will work