Five Minute Friday: Joy

Joy is a secret you just can’t keep. It burbles up, bubbles up like a spring. Slow, it starts small like the flame on the candle you just lit. Then it catches and it flares up and it draws you in closer and it makes your smile brighter and it sends you spiraling off in another direction. Giddy, you spin, reveling in it.

You can’t keep it to yourself. You just want to share it, and there’s a stranger in the line with you at the grocers and you smile and she smiles and pretty soon you’re just grinning like a holy fool.

And she is too.

It’s the best kind of sickness. A creeping contagion that can’t be eradicated. I don’t want a vaccine. I don’t want a cure. There’s no ribbon for this because the ribbon is the smile on your face and you’re passing it on to everyone you see.

Let’s all be sick together.

*****

I’m joining the flash mob of writers over at LisaJo Baker’s place, which you can find here (for today’s offering), or by clicking on the picture up top for the general gist. The basic idea is that you spend five minutes of writing, generally unedited (I correct typos), on a prompt that she provides on Thursday just after ten p.m. via a tweet, link up, and show some love to another participant. Interested? Write something. Link up. Love on.