Flash Fiction: Orange Salvation

Despite a long list of blog post ideas for the week, I'm suffering a slight case of blogger's block (Jean can't brain today, she has the dumb), so here's a piece of flash fiction to tide you over until I can come up with a relatively new arrangement of words. This originally appeared on the now-defunct Ficlets web site. You can read more at the Ficlets Memorial.

Orange Salvation

She missed oranges most of all. That sweet burst of liquid sunshine exploding in her mouth and dripping down her chin, licking her fingers, sticky from peeling the rind… she could maybe deal better with the absence of actual sunlight if she could only keep oranges around. Oranges, she knew, were the key to her sanity. Everything else - the colorless cold constancy she faced - could be endured. Just one orange. The color, the fruit, the scent, a shot of Cointreau. A glimpse of sunrise. Her mother’s fiery hair.

Fire. That was orange. She cried, knowing that she would never see it; but then she smiled, knowing it would be the last thing those sons of bitches outside ever saw, as she released the grenade.