WriteInvite.co.uk - Short Story Competitions

Pieces of Dreams

by Katie Carr

The 10th Apr 2010 WriteOnSite Winning Entry

I step into the church porch, and he tightens his hold on my arm; we smile shyly at each other and brace ourselves for the onslaught of good wishes. The dull November sky explodes in a cacophony of colour, and we step out into a storm of tiny pieces of paper, whirling before us like the fragments of a fairytale.
I catch my breath, laughing as handfuls of confetti spatter my face and drop down the front of the ivory princess outfit I shall never wear again; sisters and cousins and small boys I don't even recognise run forward to scatter bits of pastel tissue paper as though they're feeding dreams to the ducks.
'Good luck! Good luck!' they cry with a sort of manic glee, and confetti polkadots my veil and sticks to my face in the damp air. It's as though the sky is raining rainbows instead of rain, as though the world has suddenly become a place of sugar and spice and all things nice.
There's something cloying about it, suddenly; in the voices of the well-wishers I can hear a sort of desperation, as though in my fairy outfit I can perform some sort of magic- not just for myself but for them too. They want marriage to be a happy-ever-after, a tapestry stitched in pastel shades of eternal spring; they want to look back and remember their own wedding days as earlier editions of this one, a succession of neat, tidy relationships passed down through the years, through the centuries.
Don't let me be the one to break the thread, I think, watching the fragments of tissue drift on the autumnm breeze and settle incongruously on the mossy gravestones along the path. Little flecks like flower petals, false as paper roses, pretty as the carefully-posed photographs which will gather dust on my mantelpiece as the years pass.
The confetti will fade, clumping into ugly little patches on the gravel which the verger will grumble about until they vanish, trodden under the feet of weeks and months. The bright colours, the desperate dreams, the hopes for happiness and continuity - what happens to them? As we walk down the pretty little path and our guests fall in behind us, where will our little procession lead?
I'm frightened, for a moment - I think of wars and tragedies and all the things that can blight a couple's happiness; I think of family stories and wonder what mine will be. I hope, somewhere, there are pieces of dreams still spiralling in the air. I reach out and catch a tiny flake of confetti, bright and beautiful, and hold it tightly in the palm of my hand, as though I can hold my future safe.