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| Diana sat in thought so long against the trunk of the great cypress that her hair began to grow up and down, circling and embracing the roots and limbs. Like a strangler fig, her dark tresses twined around the tree and meshed with its bark. But the tree sensed she meant no harm, was just in need of strength and solace, so it made no move to disturb her thoughts. A powerful lot of thinking to do, that's what she had. The loss of a child to carelessness and the subsequent gulf that grows between mother and father are not things that can be dealt with in a day. So Diana sat against the gentle cypress and wandered the depths of the swamp in her mind. She sat there through the dry, cool winter, when her skin dried to gray, flaky patches. She sat there through the moist, heavy summer, when her body soaked up the daily rains, replenishing the liquid lost to tears. Above her, the feathery green of the cypress' leaves waned and waxed again and started back into the cycle. The wood storks nested, fledged their young and flew away. The baby alligators hatched and grew inches with each round of the sun. And still she sat. She thought and didn't think of John, her husband once upon a time. Somewhere in a dusty corner of her mind, she knew he wouldn't come looking for her, knew he couldn't worry about her whereabouts. Not just yet. When Micah, their star child, rode down the street on his shiny bike that day, they were still different people. They laughed. They talked. They loved. But the crash that left bike and Micah mangled, that stupid, senseless, sudden meeting of metal against metal and flesh, that crash catapulted both of them into another world. What is a day? she wondered. I knew that word once. What is a word? It was then Diana started her wanderings in the swamp and found the tree. Her tree. Her comfort. Four hundred years old, if it was a day. What is a day? She needed that kind of perspective. Myopia had closed down her world. She needed to see without eyes.. |
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| Please click on the links below to read exerpts from some of my other stories. | |||||||||||||||
| Retreat | Dreaming | Signs and Portents | Tattoos | |||||||||||||||
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