Inspired by RDP Tuesday Prompt: FALLEN

Do you know there is a town called Fallen, Washington?

I lived there for awhile, I moved away for awhile and  I drive by there often- I drive by at night and I always drive by alone, I don’t see my neighbors like Miss Playfair who lived near the corner store or Edmund Tillanghast who runs the  post office/city hall/general store , on my way through Fallen

Sometimes I see a dog, sometimes a cat with bright red collars around their necks and, sometimes there is a dead animal in the middle of the road and trees full  of crows deciding if they were ready for lunch or  should they call it  an early for dinner?

Fallen isn’t really the kind of town you live in by choice, you sort of end up there when times are tough because it’s quiet and far enough from the highway to get back for quick trips into a bigger town if you must.

I ended up in Fallen after a rather nasty divorce that lead to a double funeral.

As the saying goes, I’m no angel but I didn’t exactly deserve  to live in Fallen like Mr and Mrs Kline who had two children that disapeared on a family trip to the ocean and after their children were declared legaly dead, they moved to a cottage on the fringes of Fallen. I don’t think they really liked it there. In their case it’s best they keep to themselves because their children weren’t the only people in their lives who simply evaporated from the face of the Earth.

I wanted to live in Fallen.

12 years ago my husband left me for a woman he dated for six months when he was in college.

They took our dining room set, they cleaned out the wine cellar and most of our living room furniture and he bought her a new wardrobe from our life savings.

Needless to say, I had issues after that.

It happened just before Halloween, it had frozen over the night before and the roads around View Ridge Terrace were covered with slick black ice. I was driving home ( my home until the sale went through a week later ) when I saw him and his true love zip by me and I was wondering what they had taken  this time was it our vinyl record collection? My cat’s food and toys to gift to her cat? I mean, I was at a loss as to what could be left and when I looked up into the rear view mirror I saw his brake lights swish from side to side and then they were gone.

I slowed to a stop, I turned on my emergency flashers I grabbed my phone and I started to walk up the road and then I saw the missing chunk of fence and I carefully stepped to the edge of the road and looked down the gully.

Way down at the bottom of the rocky tree filled ravine I saw the car’s headlights struggle to make it out of the shadows, I saw the red tail lights as small as apples from where I stood and I thought I head a car horn and maybe a cry or two- but that could have been the wind.

As I stood there in the cold with blowing warm air onto my gloveless hands and  gently stopming my cold feet,  I marvled at the fact my heart felt warm and tingley.  I also pondered life  and death and what it means to make good choices and then I went back to my car and I carefully drove the rest of the way to my almost empty house.

Afew days later I moved to Fallen  for a fresh start and a new life.