All On A Day

[MurderWeasel]

It was cool today, windy. Overcast. All day the rain had threatened, but it had yet to arrive, and Sofia thought she had an hour at least, maybe two. It was time enough for a walk, and she needed a walk desperately to clear her mind, because today had been awful.

The reasons for her distress were as numerous as they were petty and insubstantial. The core was this: she'd failed a maths quiz again, and she'd failed to turn in science homework again, and she'd gotten into an argument about nothing again, and all of these things had stemmed in their own way from smaller things, pretty underclassmen girls giving her the stink eye or teachers biting back their tones with her like she couldn't hear it in their voices, and she'd just had enough to the point she wanted to scream.

Instead, she walked. Bellington was not large, but it was large enough it took some travel to find what could pass for wilderness. Sofia was willing to take that time, though, and a rolling, wooded hill was situated not too far from St. Editha's. It was a common haunt for others from the school, introverts seeking a unique place to study or delinquents wanting to smoke in privacy or couples searching for a remote enough location for a quick and dirty shag. That was not what brought Sofia.

There were trails here, some clearly marked and others rougher, places she could walk on old stone or hard-packed earth instead of concrete and asphalt, places where she could feel like the world was more than school and home and little shops. She had a stick with her that she'd found on the way, a fallen branch about two thirds her own height, twisted and knotted and rough and not really a good walking stick but that was okay. In her imagination, it was sometimes a staff, sometimes a sword, sometimes a rifle. She was out here for a thousand reasons, each more important than meaningless grades and transient squabbles. She was a hedge wizard tasked with collecting herbs to brew a potion to restore the health of a princess stricken by plague. She was a brigand laying in ambush to thwart a corrupt tax collector and return his ill-gotten prize to the people. The Americans were invading, and she was a member of the resistance, following their movements and conveying that information to others, at risk of instant death should she be discovered.

What she wasn't was a high school girl still in her uniform, tie loosened now and blazer sleeves rolled up and trousers and shoes getting dusty at the bottoms, traipsing her way around the semi-wilderness of a glorified public park because her head was too hot to go home just yet.

[Cicadan]

Rain seemed soon to arrive, quick to take up arms.

This day among many was quick to pass. Events too, passerby.

These hills blanketed in the noise of quiet. Blankets sewn of thread of weather sheared rock and stone.

Silhouettes danced, not invading, threateningly so. Passerby. Lurking distant, so impossible to see the moment attention was paid. A glance offered in tribute went wayward. Those shadows continued to meander with innocence.

Imagination bristled as the sinewy prickles of a carefully husbanded rose.

Clothes hung off flesh, sleeves curled, cuffs buried by fabric dunes. In small hands sat the tough canvas of paper well used. The rotund droplets of a pair of eyes searched briefly, no longer than was possible to fleetingly notice.

A finger and thumb trapped a pencil, a pencil was exhausted a sliver more and was thinned a hair more, the dull silver of graphite whispered away. The shape of a uniquely gnarled branch blossomed like jagged flower petals.

Thoughts, a subconscious flicker.

The beauty, the rarity, of all such shapes that she could briefly carve the essence of.

A hand raised in a gentle wave that barely was etched onto reality proper more than it was merely imagined by it's perpetrator. Eyes cast elsewhere, away. Words weighted the lips, but they couldn't be read. The body also a closed book, neatly shelved against the tree it leaned against, just so far off the trail that it almost vanished into the blur of it's surroundings.

- Magdalena