The white glow of a small ornate lantern pushed back the darkness surrounding us like a tiny star. My guide crouched on a rock beside a still pool, holding a common stick with the ring of the lantern hooked on the end. Below, the reflection of the light glowed just as bright, a twin star. … Continue reading The Hopeful Wanderer – The Taste of Copper
Cradled in the palms of a young man was a nest of interwoven brown twigs, the bowl filled to the brim with tiny eggs the color of spring. Buttery yellow, pastel pink, hazy purple, soft white. All speckled with little red dots, minuscule dribbles of blood. The clack as they jostled against each other promised … Continue reading The Hopeful Wanderer – To Be Known
Stacks of desert rocks dotted the sand, piled high and straight. Each painted a different color of the rainbow, each the size of my head or bigger. But in the early morning light, my guide and I noted in silence how around the toes of these rainbow pillars, the light pink and the light blue … Continue reading The Hopeful Wanderer – Making Arrangements
In the very last car of a subway train, I heard a squeak, as of skin sliding against glass. I glanced around the empty car from my seat somewhere in the middle, where I waited for takeoff. The noise came again, from the back door. Getting up to investigate, I wondered if someone was trying … Continue reading The Hopeful Wanderer – Opening the Box
Thick dust whirled upward in a swirling column, thinning out and widening in breadth the higher the wind whipped into the sky. A dust devil. Close enough to my position in the middle of sandy scrub land that the dusty air rendered the sun above hazy. Close enough for the wind whistling through desert plants … Continue reading The Hopeful Wanderer – A Dusty Day
"When you said you needed help in your shop, I thought it would be a little more... finished." Afternoon light squirmed in through the front door of a very run down rental space, cascading through floating dust motes kicked up by my vigorous pushing of a broom. The floating dust would render my efforts useless … Continue reading The Hopeful Wanderer – Secondhand Furniture
A person was laying in the grass, and she had been for quite some time. Flat on her back. A bouquet of big white and yellow daisies clutched in her hands lay across her chest. When she continued not to move from her grassy bed, I walked over to investigate. Blue eyes widened when I … Continue reading The Hopeful Wanderer – Jealous Grass
Seven boats lay keeled over on their sides in the shallows of a cloudy bay. Water swallowed the gray sky above until they became mirrored reflections, indistinguishable, and lapped against the exposed ribs of the boats like a kitten at a captured fish. Wood and metal creaked as the tide began to shift back out … Continue reading The Hopeful Wanderer – A Seven Vessel Mission
"This world is dying." A woman stood in the middle of the crumbling living room in an abandoned house. She looked like a specter, with the dim afternoon sunlight struggling in through the dusty windows at her back, with her flowy dark clothes and her flowy dark hair, with the small deer skulls perched on … Continue reading The Hopeful Wanderer – A Desperate Apology
In a remote field of faded stubble, buried deep in the woods, I had almost crossed to the other side when two young women stepped out in front of me. I pulled up short, but they just stood there next to each other. Both wore a lacy white sun dress and no shoes. They seemed … Continue reading The Hopeful Wanderer – Field Guardians
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