The tinny melody finds our ears. “Ice cream!” we squeal through unfurling grins.

Granny supplies the funds. Drumstick for Chris, pushup for me. Licking eagerly, I inch the sherbet cylinder skyward, taunting fate.

Powerless, I watch its slow-motion topple. Despair, a creamy orange puddle, bleeds outward on the hot pavement.

Elizabeth Barton has been making stuff up for most of her life. A day job as a medical writer pays the bills, but her true passion is fiction. Her work has appeared in Gemini Magazine, Skirt!, and Prime Number Magazine, among other journals and anthologies. She loves cats, ice cream, Halloween, and Hungarian aggressive piglet jokes.