Diamond Splinters
A Short Story: Part I
The daylight is seeping out of the sky.
Like water trickling through soil, it falls in the spaces between the low-lying houses to cast its dim glow on the abandoned field. The grass is tallest at the edges, green and waving in the dry summer breeze, it grazes the bowed wood fence.
A tin can, rusted from the fall rains, tumbles across the patchy earth; its song is hollow and sharp.
Sam shuffles across the dirt, his son Robbie at his heels. The dust of his father’s footsteps billows up, collecting on his blonde curls. The pair comes to a stop in the middle of the field. Here is the makeshift baseball diamond the neighborhood kids use on hot Saturday afternoons and quiet Sunday evenings.
Now though, on a Thursday, it is deserted.
The tracks in the dirt trace a well-worn path around the bases — home is an old “Welcome” mat, first, second, third, the flat faces of a shredded tire held down with rocks.
“Across from me son, over there.” Sam stands at the pitcher’s mound and gestures towards home base. The twelve-year-old nods and scrambles to obey. He holds his father’s old glove in his pudgy grip, running headfirst, bent over while his feet struggle to match his eager, racing heart.
