Lily

Gum drops rained from cotton candy clouds. She rode her unicorn through the fields of Dream land. She came across a bandit and charged at him, but he held firm, no flinching. He sat upon his mighty steed. His nose was high in the air. “I’m the Time Bandit,” he said. “What do you want?” Lily asked. “I am here to steal your youth,” he declared. “You visit me once a month and tell me this all the time,” Lily said. “You’re right child,” he said. “But you’re a mother now, correct?”“You know this,” Lily muttered. “This dream representation of yourself is just you as a child,” the Time Bandit said. “You no longer believe in unicorns and such childish things, correct?” She turned her back on him and he let out a divisive laugh. “You cannot escape me girl,” he mocked. Clocks filled the skies and they ticked away. “The flow of time only flows one way child,” he said. “It only flows forward, not backward.” “So let me play now. Then I’ll go back to worrying about my mortgage and getting my daughter to school on time, when I wake up. But for now, will you let me ride a damn unicorn through dream land during a gumball thunderstorm?” she said with her eyes burning with fire. He smiled and shook his head. “That is no way to talk for a young lady,” he teased. She rolled her eyes and the unicorn trotted past the smug time bandit. She passed events of her life. There was graduating college, getting married, and her daughter being born. She could even hear her own mother calling her home for supper. She listened to the ticking of the clock. She wanted her mother to have brown hair and be young again, but when she reached her,

she would be older. Her gray hair would be pulled back in a ponytail and they would reminisce about old times. The unicorn vanished and the gumballs turned to real rain the closer she drew to the house. She let out a sigh and entered the house, accepting that she and her mother were not as young as they had once been.