The Promise

 
 The Promise

She sits, limbs stretched lazily before her, looking up through the wind tossed branches overhead. The light of the noon sun shifts everchanging patterns of light and dark shadow across the bridge of her freckled nose, and she closes her eyes enjoying the play of red and black on her eyelids. The smell of spring grass blossoms around her, comingled with rich soil and the wet earthy scent of the stream below.
She looks down toward the water and watches two tow headed boys attempting to fish in the shallow currents, and laughs enternally at distant memories of sunny spring days beside slow moving streams. The breeze picks up and blows fluffy white dandelion seeds in her hair, and before her eyes. Distant floral perfumes dance along the breeze and fill the day with their splendor. A dog barks from afar, and birds chatter from the trees. A mother passes on the bike trail, pushing a stroller with a chubby red faced toddler inside. One pink socked foot kicks steadily back and forth and has lost it's small red shoe. A sticky sucker is clutched tightly in the childs hand and a fat stray curl is plastered to the side of her small red face by sweat. The baby smiles and waves, and is gone.
She looks longingly after the little family of two, and than expectantly at the horizon to the North. Soon he will make his way over the sloping hill and return to her. Soon, his smiling eyes and lazy smile will be all she sees as he finally arrives. 

 Ramblin' Hoosier~

Lightning Bug--short story

 
  The lightning found the center of the old Oak in the yard, splitting it nearly in two. Twisted, charred pieces of timber fan out around it like a hula skirt, and smoke still rises from within. There is a deep black crater just visible from the house, lying where the roots once layed, and we run out to take a closer look.

     The surface of the tree is strangely both cool and hot to the touch. The rain has fallen unrelentingly since dawn and everything in sight is heavy with the moisture. The limbs sag forlornly, carrying fresh green leaves dripping fat drops of water on our heads. There's a noise coming from the depths of the blackened 0ak and we stop, suddenly aware it could fall. We listen intently, soft mews are coming from the woody remains, barely audible. It sounds like the cry of a small animal, but somehow human. Slowly we go forward and look into the splayed timber.

    Our breath catches and we gasp in wonder at the beautiful silver flower growing from the dark sooty mud in the oaks burnt embrace. It is untouched and undirtied. A perfect flower, unlike any we've ever seen. We shift a piece of wood and a ray of bright, after shower sunlight gleams down on the silver bud. It burst into bloom, petals peeling slowly open, and in the center, sitting perched in a bed of golden pollen, is a tiny silver girl. She stands and unfurls silver wings that flutter in the breeze. I bend down and peer, astounded, at the tiny figure. She stretches and yawns and I know what the mewing sound must have been. She turns and sees me. Her diminutive features transform into a mask of shock, than slowly impatience. She puts her small hands to her hips and looks into my eyes. "What? You've never seen the birth of a lightning bug before?"

She flaps her wings and hops from the flower, disappearing into a cloud of shining dust and tinkling laughter.

 Ramblin' Hoosier~

The Clock-- a short story

The Clock

The ticking clock assualts his ears as he sits waiting, always waiting. The path of his constantly roaming toe is clearly visible in the faded green carpet, physical witness to his seemingly endless vigilance outside the thick oak door. A steady muted hum carries through the hall from some appliance downstairs, and he tries to capture it in his ears to drown out the ticking clock. It doesn't work.

He's sat in this same chair, in this same hall, every afternoon and evening for the past three months, always waiting for the moment to arrive, always taunted by the passing time lauded over him by the ticks and chimes of the old Grandfather to his left. He jerks his head from his hands, and peers at the closed door again. His hands clench in a sweaty grasp and he raises weakly from the chair. He pauses, suspended between sitting and standing, and sits heavily back down, head weakly crumpling back to his waiting hands.

The clock ticks steadily on and the day is falling into night, and the moment has again eluded them. He peers to his right through the darkened window at the end of the hall, and his conscience struggles against his cowardice. It screams for him to rise and enter the room before it's to late,before she's gone. He wants nothing more than to see her, to hold her frail body to his breast and ease the pain, and comfort the heart that so comforted his own, but his weakness wins, and he sits, and waits, and the clock continues to tick away the moments of a life that meant so much. A life that meant so much, that he cannot bear to see it slip away, and he hates himself for it, and he hates the fates for making him such a coward through their theft of life.
And he sits and waits, the clock ticking away the day.

I am not a happy camper over this.

Geez, where in the heck could anyone draw the conclusion that the books were cooked for political gain? :-0 Hmm, the report says terrorism is on the decline when in fact it's increased. Hmm, the main strength of the Bush Administration is it's "ability and strength" in the war against terror. Nope, I don't see a thing suspicious about it at all.iWon News

Another cool blog and a sad Smarty loss..

I found another great blog read today surfingI respectfully dissent, suggest you give it a read if you get the chance.

I'm still depressed about Smarty Jones losing on Saturday! I really thought he would do it, and the saddest thing is, he was more than capable. Oh well, he is still an amazing creature and I loved the class and loyalty of the people around him, that's the true measure of a champion.