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tamingthemuse2009-08-01 08:29 pm
tekia.livejournal.com) wrote in tamingthemuse2009-08-01 08:29 pm
Entry tags:
Prompt# 158 - barbeque - Hidden Trails - Tekia - original
Title: Hidden Trails
Fandom: Original
Prompt: Barbeque
Warnings: none
Rating: PG
Summary: Continuation of my life after people.
I hadn’t realized just how quite it really was with no humans besides myself in the city.
There were no cars, no trains, no bats n the river. Only the birds in the trees, and they seemed to come into their own with the falling of humanity.
Earlier today, I braved a convenience store, a cloth mask over the lower part of my face to stifled the stench of rotten meat and spoilt milk. I packed a bag full of sda, candy, bags of chips, and anything not spoilt by time and mice. Rice had been my favorite, Before, and now it seemed as if it was going to be my stable.
Until it ran out.
I pushed that thought away for when it did happen.
Instead, I deposited my booty at my house, packed a nap-sack, mounted my bike, and rode through the silent town. I had no ice, the but soda was still heavenly on my parched throat after a difficult hill.
Finally, I arrived at my destination. On a bluff, overlooking the great muddy river, there was a patch of overgrown flowers, an ancient log cabin turned into a museum, and a marble bench. Sighing with relief, I dropped to the bench and lifted my face to the breeze coming off the river.
That’s when I realized just how quite the world had become. I opened my eyes and stared up at the blue, cloudless sky, tears prickling at my eyes. Usually, there were hawks in this area, but the sky was empty, as empty as the city behind me. I let my gaze roam to the landscape before me, wistfully remembering sitting there Before, with my mother, and talking about nothing.
Just like that time, the island in the middle of the river was covered, obscured, by trees in full bloom, the state beyond just the same. Nothing but trees as far as the eye could see. Closer, the bluff cut away and more trees valiantly tried to block the view of the river from me. Even closer, was an old stone barbeque that had been open to the public, but I had never used.
I remember asking my mother to cook out there once, but we never did.
There was a lot we never did. Casting my eyes back to the river, I wondered, did I regret it?
Did I?
I stood as I remembered fishing, not far from here, before Mom married again. After that, (what, fourteen years ago?) we never went again. But I remember how.
I walked past the stone barbeque and into the trees, down the not so hidden path long ago adapted to man’s will. It was cooler under the shade of the trees and I awaited the cool breeze from the waterfront with much anticipation.
I have always known these trails. Mom would say we would go someday, when we had a man with us, but it never seemed to happen. Too much work, not enough time. When I got my own car, freedom, the first place I drove was here.
Now I knew these trails so well, walked them so many times. My brother’s name, painted on a cave wall, faded with time was still a memento to me. The waterfall that produced water from deep within the earth, freezing water that everybody was warned never to drink unless you wanted to be violently ill still was slippery and brought about giggles.
Then the dangerous climb down the bluff that I had no doubt had always been illegal, but nobody cared. Everybody did it, although I don’t ever remember seeing anybody else down this way aside from myself and those I was with. I slipped and coated myself with mud as I traveled down the side of a tree’s roots and leaped the distance from the bluff to the railroad tracks that had been knocked off their settings with the last flood. Never to be replaced.
I picked my way through the swamp like mud and emerged at the riverside. A fallen tree laid just right and I sat there, gazing out at the river, enjoying the cooling breeze.
Now that I was here, I only wanted to sit and stare. I wanted to laugh and play and be silly and do all the things a person can’t do in public without embarrassing herself. I wanted to bask in the fact that here, I was alone, not because I was alone, but because I had far away from the city and thus I couldn’t be reminded that there was nobody there.
My fingers itched and I realized that if I wanted to fish, I’d have to find me a fishing pole.
Fandom: Original
Prompt: Barbeque
Warnings: none
Rating: PG
Summary: Continuation of my life after people.
I hadn’t realized just how quite it really was with no humans besides myself in the city.
There were no cars, no trains, no bats n the river. Only the birds in the trees, and they seemed to come into their own with the falling of humanity.
Earlier today, I braved a convenience store, a cloth mask over the lower part of my face to stifled the stench of rotten meat and spoilt milk. I packed a bag full of sda, candy, bags of chips, and anything not spoilt by time and mice. Rice had been my favorite, Before, and now it seemed as if it was going to be my stable.
Until it ran out.
I pushed that thought away for when it did happen.
Instead, I deposited my booty at my house, packed a nap-sack, mounted my bike, and rode through the silent town. I had no ice, the but soda was still heavenly on my parched throat after a difficult hill.
Finally, I arrived at my destination. On a bluff, overlooking the great muddy river, there was a patch of overgrown flowers, an ancient log cabin turned into a museum, and a marble bench. Sighing with relief, I dropped to the bench and lifted my face to the breeze coming off the river.
That’s when I realized just how quite the world had become. I opened my eyes and stared up at the blue, cloudless sky, tears prickling at my eyes. Usually, there were hawks in this area, but the sky was empty, as empty as the city behind me. I let my gaze roam to the landscape before me, wistfully remembering sitting there Before, with my mother, and talking about nothing.
Just like that time, the island in the middle of the river was covered, obscured, by trees in full bloom, the state beyond just the same. Nothing but trees as far as the eye could see. Closer, the bluff cut away and more trees valiantly tried to block the view of the river from me. Even closer, was an old stone barbeque that had been open to the public, but I had never used.
I remember asking my mother to cook out there once, but we never did.
There was a lot we never did. Casting my eyes back to the river, I wondered, did I regret it?
Did I?
I stood as I remembered fishing, not far from here, before Mom married again. After that, (what, fourteen years ago?) we never went again. But I remember how.
I walked past the stone barbeque and into the trees, down the not so hidden path long ago adapted to man’s will. It was cooler under the shade of the trees and I awaited the cool breeze from the waterfront with much anticipation.
I have always known these trails. Mom would say we would go someday, when we had a man with us, but it never seemed to happen. Too much work, not enough time. When I got my own car, freedom, the first place I drove was here.
Now I knew these trails so well, walked them so many times. My brother’s name, painted on a cave wall, faded with time was still a memento to me. The waterfall that produced water from deep within the earth, freezing water that everybody was warned never to drink unless you wanted to be violently ill still was slippery and brought about giggles.
Then the dangerous climb down the bluff that I had no doubt had always been illegal, but nobody cared. Everybody did it, although I don’t ever remember seeing anybody else down this way aside from myself and those I was with. I slipped and coated myself with mud as I traveled down the side of a tree’s roots and leaped the distance from the bluff to the railroad tracks that had been knocked off their settings with the last flood. Never to be replaced.
I picked my way through the swamp like mud and emerged at the riverside. A fallen tree laid just right and I sat there, gazing out at the river, enjoying the cooling breeze.
Now that I was here, I only wanted to sit and stare. I wanted to laugh and play and be silly and do all the things a person can’t do in public without embarrassing herself. I wanted to bask in the fact that here, I was alone, not because I was alone, but because I had far away from the city and thus I couldn’t be reminded that there was nobody there.
My fingers itched and I realized that if I wanted to fish, I’d have to find me a fishing pole.