her

It was a late afternoon. The sun still glittered calmly in the August sky, spilling gold all over the wheat fields beneath. My eyes shut, I lay in a humid, cramped living room, drowned in the dull hum of silence. Occasionally, the skinny fingertips of the old cherry tree would tap on the dirty glass, loosely suspended in the naked window frame, as if trying to break in. I could feel the sullen wind outside ruffling the lifeless wheat, whistling to it self as it crept through the dead garden. There was someone else out there. I might have heard someone call out to me. Must be a figment of my imagination. It has to be. I’m all alone. But there it goes again. Louder this time. It echoed from outside. Suddenly my eyelids feel heavy and swollen, but with a little force they give in allowing me to make my way through to the front door. It’s locked. I twist the rusty with age key; it struggles and disobeys, however, with a little click followed by a screech I let the passing by breeze in. it toyed with my hair before escaping into the depths of the murky house. There stood she. Outside my gate. I felt a wave of tears crush against my eyelids, but I don’t let them escape. She just stood there, staring at me with her empty eyes. Calling out time. Yet, she had not let a single sound slip from her bruised lips. Just a silent empty gaze. There was a rotting cut above her left brow, blood dry on her pale cheeks. The bottom jaw was dislocated and twisted to the right. Her thick, black, curly hair quivered, smashing against her bruised face. She called out to me once more. Pleading me to go with her. I responded with a paralyzed stare, imitating hers. With short, jerky movements her body shook as the rusty bike that she sat on took off, slowly rolling up the yellow deserted hill. I looked at her feet. The pedals span around by them selves propelling her forward as her brutally smashed legs hang limply by the sides, the bare anklebone occasionally banding against the metal. She pleaded me with her sad gaze. But I said no. And that perhaps, is what had saved my life.