For Published on Enduring Bones June 2018

Reprinted for Fandango’s Flashback Friday

She could see the top of the hill from where she was- it was covered with long razor sharp grasses and treacherous slick weeds covered with thorns and bugs that smelled like rotten meat if you stepped on them.

Above her the sky was a cool light blue but the air was hot and the Sun was frozen in the sky.

She thought about moving, maybe she’d go ahead and try to get to the top of the hill and leave the thistles and busy bugs and the slow moving stream full of brown fetid water behind her.

Then she blinked and in that single blink the Sun disappeared from the sky.

So did the hill.

So did the bugs.

Relief, she thought.

Something soft and cool settled on her cheek- and clung there like dew on a carpet of rich green grass. A colorless shade fell across her and she almost sighed in relief.

Then from the other side of the cool white shade she was in she heard someone say:

” Looks like she may have slipped trying to get up that hill- the back of her head is almost gone. I wonder what she hit on her way down.”

She knew.

All they had to do was lift the sheet back from her bruised and bloated face, look into her open unblinking eyes and ask.

 

Daily Addiction Prompt: Scuttle