Break From Reality. Daily.
This story is by David H. Safford and was part of our 2017 Winter Writing Contest. You can find all the writing contest stories here. She would have immediately fetched the gun and shot him if she hadn’t been burying her husband. The November ground was already frozen, the dirt stubborn as the dead man…
At the end of every night, Celestine insisted that she comb her daughter’s hair.
She had good reason. As they braved the hot, sweaty bogs of the Deep South, stubborn bits of nature would stick to them as they hid from men and dogs in gnarled bushes and impenetrable dens of thorn and vine.
So as the moon fell that night and pink tremors appeared in the east, she took Winnie’s shoulder and said, “Let’s rest here.”
The girl’s face soured. She made to keep walking.
“I don’t wanna. There’s a station ahead.”
The mother shook her head and sat cross-legged on a patch of earth between two arching palmettos.
“No, it isn’t safe,” she said. “Come here and sit.”
