A PERIOD OF PROMISE by Lloyd Price

Parties, winnings, gifts, birthdays, Christmas, a dance, a trip to the country, a school outing, a smile, genuine laughter, finding something valuable, Mother feeling happy, the family sitting for at least two seconds with everyone laughing, all constitute a period of promise. My period of promise.

And then it happens and the moment comes and the moment goes so fast. Was it real or was it just a passing glimpse? For this period never last for quite too long. Before you know it, it’s all back to gloom and doom. Frustration, anger, hurt feelings, anticipations, violence, greed, fight, food, and solitude. All morphed into inconsistency.

So, I keep rolling the dice and once in a while I may come up with sixes, but I keep rolling, yet some more and more and it never seems that I’m ever able to win at this game. A pause and Oops, the light is on again. A glimmer of hope, I dance for a day, a night, into the dawn. Oops, it’s gone again. Darnn, never consistent it seems.

And then you wonder, I wonder if it would ever change from a second to a period to a very long period. And then the promise, like the joy that is felt at the Ball, the dance, the Christmas gifts, the birthday gifts and the thought of a very long vacation, that this time it may, hopefully, convert into something concrete, something tangible, the Promise.

Oh, to be bought up on an empty promise is in my words is to breathe contempt. I said that? Yes, I said that. So happy moments like the Ball, the dance, Christmas gifts, birthday gifts, that thought of a very long, long vacation is over as soon the gifts are unwrapped, Christmas is come and gone, another year you’re older, the Ball is finished, the clock struck twelve, Cinderella has turned back into a Slave. The period of promise has already passed. Until the next Ball, the dance, the Christmas and birthday gifts, the thought or plans for a very, very long vacation. Mother just smiled, a chance at last.

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AUTHOR BIO:

Lloyd is an actor, director and a writer for life. Originally from Belize, he has written several one-act plays that have been performed at The Common Basis Theatre and other venues. He is currently working on a new play.