Faraway River

There is a furrow in her brow and its’ getting deeper by the second; she pretends not to notice the thoughts that make it grow. With one wrinkled palm, she smudges her waning, yet dignified grey hair into place and begins down the windy path that bends away from home.

A furrow is also growing in her brain but she never notices it, Cerebrospinal fluid pulses through the deepening ridge and she begins to feel calm for the first time in a while. The ridge on her forehead disappears and one appears on her face, in the form of a smile.

A room full of faceless people is laughing; not a jeering laughter but kind sweet words, but what are they saying? She wants to talk to them but the words are falling all around her, on the mud away from home. One particular woman bears a stark resemblance to… umm… what is it? That child that she once birthed, who? It must be a type of girl. But the word is running and laughing now, how can it easily do that? What strong bones it must have! She can’t catch it so she moves on and tries to tap a shoulder, it vanishes. Funny, she thinks, I was about to say… ? Another word is laughing at her from the floor. Suddenly a gust of wind knocks all the people in the… uh, box shaped place, oh yes room. The people and the room are nowhere around but there’s a cool, blue, transient substance flowing around her ankles. She can’t remember what it’s called and she doesn’t know where that place is uh… um… you know? The place with a warm bed and something to eat? She thinks it begins with an ‘h’. She doesn’t know where else to go, so she sits down in the river bed and waits. She thinks this must the first time her Mother let her out alone; she’s going to be mad when she comes to fetch me from the playground.

The white tufts of cotton disperse in the quickly fading daylight. And back at home, the family still waits patiently for her at the dining table.