Old Trees

 

 She sat among the trees she’d loved for over two decades, once again filled with sorrow that she would be leaving them.

“How can I leave?” she whispered for the thousandth time since the decision had been made…to leave.

Closing her eyes, she listened to the wind in the trees, then to the trees themselves, their soft kind voices in her head.

“Little human, we love you, and don’t take this the wrong way, but you are exhausting. That younger forest has more energy than we do. We’ve protected your family through many crises. Please. We need to rest, now.”

Laundry

 

She loved doing laundry.

Make no mistake. She was terrible at it.

Not for her the separating of clothes into various piles.

On laundry day, she opened up the washer and dumped the entire contents of the hamper into it, set it to Normal/cold, added laundry softener (because she wasn’t a total barbarian), detergent, and oxi-clean (because she was sort of a barbarian), turned it on and wished it all well.

Then into the dryer.

She didn’t iron or fold anything.

But she loved the smell and warmth of clean laundry right out of the dryer.

And that was enough.

Lorenzo

 

It’s supposed to be a low-key, no-hassle, relaxing little jar of tranquility; a little item called “Life Under Glass”.

It’s basically a large jelly jar that comes with substrate, a shell, three sticks, 4 slips of aquatic plants, a moss ball…and Lorenzo.

Lorenzo came in his own baggie. He’s a snail.

He is not low-key, no-hassle or relaxing. Lorenzo is Chaos.

Sometimes he can’t be seen at all.

He looks deceased at least once a day, either half-buried in the substrate or literally upside down impersonating an empty shell.

But he’s fine.

He just sleeps that way.

What an asshole.

Barn Boots

 

She was pulling on her barn boots when it happened.

Her barn boots.

For almost half a century, the first shoes on her feet when she left the house were her barn boots so she could do chores before whatever else the day had in store for her.

She looked down at them, really looked at them.

They were always the same. Not the same pair, of course, but the same style every few years, as needed.

Tractor Supply Company polka dot lined barn boots.

She wouldn’t need them at her new place.

And her heart broke, just a little.

Spring

 

The spring night was filled with the sound of frogs as he made his way from his truck to the house.

Absentmindedly, he identified them in his head. Peepers, Treefrogs, Leopard frogs, the occasional bullfrog, and…

Odd. He didn’t recognize that one.

It sounded almost like a cough, or a sneeze, but obviously it was another frog, or some weird insect. They made tons of strange noises.

The door closed behind him, and he turned off the porch light.

From the cover of the forest, one sasquatch was looking at the other one, perturbed.

“Fucking allergies” said the other one.

The Gift

 

She inhaled, then stopped and looked up.

The jasmine vines intermingled with the wisteria and they covered the pergola roof and leaped across to scale the neighboring pine tree.

Fifteen years ago she’d planted them with a hope and a prayer, because she had the blackest thumb there ever was, and now look at them.

Just look at them.

There was a twinge in her heart and a tear came to her eye, because this time next year she would be living somewhere else.

When she sadly looked down, there it was. A pod. The wisteria would go with her.

Security

 

Furtively, he glanced out the window. Something had set the motion sensor light off in the yard.

Holding his breath without realizing it, he scanned every inch of the illuminated lawn.

Nothing.

He had set the sensitivity so just a possum, stray cat or racoon wouldn’t set it off. No, it would have to be something bigger. At least six times bigger. What the hell could it have been?

Finally shrugging, he let the curtain fall back into place and turned back to the TV.

Outside, the six racoons crept back into the yard to practice making their pyramid again.