The bubble at the gate

Original fiction extract.

The woman making bubbles stood beside the park gate. Her largest loop produced something which held together long enough to cross the path. Children followed it, their hands rising before their feet had decided where to go. At the gate, a family was trying to bring a folded pushchair through against the stream of arrivals.

The bubble approached them like a visitor with no understanding of queues. It lengthened around the handle, a transparent shoulder slipping into a space nobody else could use. Across its skin, the whole park turned in crooked colours: trees bent over pink paths, a yellow sky gathered at one edge. The father drew his hand back as if he had nearly touched a thought. For a second the bubble occupied the gate more completely than any solid person. Then it brushed the iron latch and vanished, leaving everyone’s raised hands holding different pieces of empty air.

The pushchair came through. The children looked towards the woman’s loop again, already forgetting the exact size of what they had followed. On the latch, a single wet bead held the sunlight. It was too small for any of them to notice.

Choose three powerful words or phrases from the extract above. Analyse how the writer uses language to present the bubble’s movement through the crowded entrance.

Write about 200 to 250 words.