Waiting

***based on an assignment where the students were asked to use words and phrases from favorite books and compose a short piece about a character in motion.

A woman stood waiting at the end of the pier. She was eager to escape the endless boredom, eager to escape a life filled with secondhand dreams and lost opportunity. Her hair blew violently in the wind. She tried to push it away and noticed that her forehead had begun to perspire. The cold sweat made her shiver. Her eyes darted from the riverbank to the walls of the wounded city, a place she was never able to call home. A crowd had begun to collect around her, clustered on the pier like seagulls anticipating a free meal. They simply stood and stared, waiting for the wind to shift, waiting for something to happen in a place where nothing ever happens. The woman knew she needed to get on that boat before the last shred of her thin spirit was smoldered by the dormant minds of her small town. She stood there waiting all afternoon; nothing arrived but the wind.

Coming Home

Thousands of bodies
were crammed onto the small pier,
eyes trained on the sea.
Red, white and blue balloons flew overhead
in the swift, cool September breeze.
The air buzzed with quiet chatter
as families waited nervously.
Each moment swelled into the next.
Even the babies seemed to sense
what was coming;
a tearful reunion with someone they had
yet to meet,
someone who helped to create them
but had not been there to witness their arrival.
Suddenly,
as if the hours had slipped by
in a moment,
a new sound began to grow
on the horizon.
The sound of water splashing out in celebration,
of bodies standing stiffly,
the faint murmur of a single trumpet.
All were focused on the growing sound,
knowing that it meant the return of their loved ones,
so long left
at sea.

fear

It is silent
slithering up your pant leg
while you stand shivering
unaware

It is deadly
able to stick its fangs into your flesh
and fill your blood with poison
slowly

It is ruthless
refusing to relent
until you are completely
consumed