Fiction Friday – drought

FICTION FRIDAY – drought

It has slipped into your pockets and the grit caught under your fingernails causes you to notice the lawn is looking a bit brown and even though you start to give it attention and turn the sprinkler on with increasing frequency, the ground’s thirst is not slaked and the wind scrapes off the topsoil. Then you start to think of the last time it rained, properly rained, the type that soaks in gently and then it turns to a drenching getting from the car to the front door and turns the streets into the consistent static of tyres, and you can’t remember. And because the memory is some months back, you notice the dryness of your mouth and the cracks in the skin around your heels and the leaves that fall crack underfoot, lifeless, discarded in abandonment. On the fridge door is a child’s artwork with cotton balls stuck on as pretend clouds, and there is as much chance of rain from cotton balls as there is of love from the person whose breath condenses with yours as you sleep, falls to the pillows and dries out before dawn.