This is a new requested challenge. For this challenge, we will explore one of the four elements: air, earth, water, fire.

This week’s focus is AIR.

The air was dripping with rumour and innuendo.

Did he?

Did she?

He said, she said!

The shopping mall, a place where the sweet aroma of all things pleasant and luxurious abounded, the air was rife with speculation.

You couldn’t step without hearing the whispered voices of not the concerned but the gossip mongers thriving on the scandal they propagated with each passing comment.

It all seemed such a shame when you thought about it that people found the misfortune of others such a pack animal preoccupation.

Around them, the food sellers with their more than sweet temptations continued to promote their trade while the character of the respective couple was tossed around in the air continuously thickened with the destruction of their character.

It went on all day with the news of new allegations to be revealed, the TV stations quick to come on board with film coverage of the couple leaving compromising locations, interviews with neighbours who once thought they saw this that and the other and each revelation adding to the overall speculation.

It got so the very air was thick with what could only be thought of as a hotchpotch of possibilities and soon the truth which had long disappeared into the toxic air of the neighbourhood no longer mattered as the feeding frenzy of one comment layered upon another took away all reason and compassion.

The couple in question found the toxicity of their situation so overwhelming they went into hiding, finding a place away from the fetid air around them.

It took time for the air to clear, for the sweetness of life to return and for the couple to feel confident of emerging into a society that had so soured the life they thought was their right.

Written for: https://thehauntedwordsmith.wordpress.com/2019/04/01/elemental-challenge-april-1/