The Dump
I pitched a quick look over my shoulder. I was almost at the tree line and the horses were still at the lower fence. Growing up around horses, I was not normally afraid of them, but when I walked through the pasture, I always had a feeling they would run toward me, trampling me in their haste. It was the wide open that made me feel this way. They were really very huge animals.
Do the Dead Hate the Rain?
Do the dead hate the rain? The way I hate it? I used to wonder that sometimes as I stared out my window, a downpour beating a strange rhythm on my slate roof. I lived in a big old house next door to the town cemetery. I could see the expanse of gravestones from my kitchen table through the falling and streaming water, the window distorting the view. Do they hate the wetness? The chill? Rain made me more than gloomy, it elicited in me a dread and fear that I could never explain to anyone. Perhaps foreboding would be the right word, although I know that sounds ridiculously dramatic. Many times it would bring on one of the migraine headaches that sent me to bed and into the dark for days at a time, wanting to sleep, wanting to throw up, but unable to do either successfully. I would finally lapse into a half-sleep of shadows and noises that I could not quite see or understand fully.
My Brother Died in the Hospital
When I was 12, my brother died in the hospital. I didn’t get to see him to say goodbye. I was told he would be fine, but the adults in my life really didn’t want me to see him because he was hooked up to so many tubes, wires and machines, and they thought it would upset me. It would have, I’m sure, but it upset me more to have him slip away, unseen, with no closure.