Weirdtober 1: Abandoned Places
Words: 534 Warnings: None
...
Somewhere on a gray plane of dust, alone under the white light of an unflinching sun, half-buried and more than half forgotten, there is a golf ball.
A careful eye could trace its path. Miniature craters draw a dotted line through the dust, marks on a map to nowhere. A careful traveler could follow its trajectory, if the round-shouldered hills could be differentiated, if the horizon was not too close, if the sun was still enough in the broad, black sky. Less careful, now, as tire tracks and footprints criss-cross the gray plains. Work was done here, the industry of a beehive without the bees, an anthill when all the ants have died. There is a print in the dust where a rock sat for millions of years—and there, a scuffle where something fell that did not mean to fall. A perfectly round hole pressed into dust and then into rock, a cluster of footprints around it like children watching theater in the park. Another space where a rock had been, and five divots in the dust where fingertips curled in to lift it.
If anyone was there to listen, the silence might crackle with the memory of singing.
Continue [external]
