A Light In The Dark
It all started with the wolf and it was dark then, too.
It was the wolf I remembered when I woke. Howling off in the trees on that dark night but I can’t be like my mama, starting stories in the middle leave you to figure beginning, middle, end. Because every story has all of those.
Bolted up mouth trembling, eyes wet because of how it ended, could still hear my own voice yelling don’t go, don’t go but she went anyway. Yet despite knowing how it ended, it was still the wolf. That haunts me. Howling like that. And I’m not rightly sure why.
It was dark when she woke. Stumbled down to the water with the moon to guide her steps over dirt and patches of moss soft under her feet. She walks down to the water, crouches on the sand. That’s when she notices the blue claws glowing in the moonlight. Reaches out tentatively. Picks one up.
She knows what happens. Knows the little blue crustaceans come crawling out of the water when the moon comes out. Can almost see all the birds swooping down to feed, screaming. But she’s never seen it. Can’t.
She could, since it’s almost always dark now. So many claws she can barely stand to look at them or even the way the sand glitters blue like maybe it’s mocking the sky. So she picks her feet carefully, not to step on them.
