I tend to be too quick to trust. Not just people. I've made accounts for many different writing websites and more because I was too lazy to read the description. That's the reason I found Prose and it hasn't backfired yet.

Emphasis on the yet.

Oh, there is the one part of suddenly having 500 emails a day since I started this habit. I wonder why...

I smile at the sprout breaking its way through the soil. It represents everything I wish I could be but can’t. It pushed through the fire that brought forth all this carnage and destruction. It’s the first sign of life I’ve seen since the death of my parents and the raging inferno that destroyed everything I’ve ever known.

The blackened corpses of trees and their ashes lie everywhere in every direction, criss crossing each other and making it impossible to escape. The earth is still warm from the flames and my shoes have gained holes both on top and on the sole.

But this small sprout gives me hope. Hope that I can pick myself back up and  find my way out of this labyrinth of death. An empty hole fills my chest where my heart used to sit. I’ve not felt as much as I should considering that my parents are… you know. But I can’t help but almost be relieved at the same time. Sure, I loved them, but I don’t think they ever gave me much of a thought except for when I forced them to bring me on this trip.

I’m glad I came. I was with them in their last moments; their dying breaths were spent together with me off to the side where they liked me: out of the way.

I sat on the stump of a log that hadn’t been burned as much as others. I stare at the small sprout wondering how it got there. How far did it travel from seed pod to earth to grow into this beautiful thing of greenery?

I see the green as a new thing. It reminds me of my sister back home. How I was there as she was born just like I am here to watch this plant survive into something better. I realize then that I may never see her again.

I truly mourn them. I mourn all the things I’ve lost and all the things I’m sure will go wrong. My feet sink into the ashy dirt and I wiggle my toes to get a feel of the wonderful things our planet has given us. These things have been given and taken away.

Mother loved plants and I will always remember that. She never valued modern-day electronics or any of the other distractions of the current decade. I always thought it annoying but I wonder if she had a point. Why should we spend all our time on a screen? There’s a large world outside that we’ve barely started to explore. All it takes is a small idea to spread the start of a new era of excitement.

I come during the last few months

To dreading students and staff who have had enough

Something we are told to prepare for all year

Once it comes, the scores are all we fear

I am a compliation of all you learn

But once I'm here the knowledge seems to burn

What am I?

An old folding chair sat on the treated pine floating dock. Aluminum framed, plastic armed, nylon strapping; the colors reflected the preferred palettes prevalent during the Carter administration. It still had a faded price tag from Woolworth's on one of the tubular curves of a leg.

She sat there watching the early morning sun chase shadows across the river. The tall pines to either side of her waterfront seemed to reach out and touch the opposite bank; smoke curled up and away from her fingertips.

She would never finish the pack.

She had a sip of Nestea with barely a tremble in her hand. The pain medication had started its uphill labor, but hadn't quite crested the hill. Ice struck the sides of the glass in time with the small shakes. Condensation dripped and ran down to the paper towel she kept wrapped around the sides and bottom. With a keen perception of everything around her, inside her, she savored the running coolness as it made its way down and in.

Her meds no longer quite kept the pain away, but they rounded the sharp edges into a dull throb. So, she took what joy she could, as she could. A cold sip of iced tea and a last pull on that Virginia tobacco, and what was cooled was warmed again.

Subtle reds blended with the oranges and brighter yellows against brown river water. She saw a flash of silver as a fish jumped just outside the reach of a pineshadow, and her eyes followed the ripples as they began to spread and be carried away on the current.

Those ripples still stir, decades later.

Every day, turtles lined up like soldiers to sunbathe on a deadfall just slightly upstream and across the way from her dock. She was happy to see them keeping to their routine; for them, nothing had changed, or would.

For them, this was just one more morning of many.

For her, this was the last day on the banks of that river.

Her husband was sitting on the steel staircase that led down into the water, quietly observing. He didn't notice the turtles. He didn't care for the jumping fish or the game of chase being played by the sun and the tall pines. His rheumy blue eyes, so strong and cold and hard, wept in a constant silent stream.

He watched her watching. He saw her smile through the pain, he saw her shoulders hitch and heave every time she swallowed or breathed too deeply. He heard her breath catch and the ice clink in her shaky grip, and he was content to watch her watching this place she loved so dearly.

He sat, and he wept.

She heard him stifle a sob, and she knew that it was time.

"Help me up, Mack, I think we should go."

With that, the weight of the strong but slightly built man shifted the balance on the floating dock as he moved to support his wife.

He helped her inside so that she could put the final touches on the last bag she would ever need to pack. While she worked, she breathed heavily, and gave him a few final instructions for how things should be. He tried to help her, but she insisted that he let her do what she could.

With dignity, despite the pain that stooped her, she looked around her home once more. Slowly, she walked out on her own power, determined not to spoil that cherished place with the stigma of dying there.

She had spent her last morning in that little piece of Heaven. In two days time, she would trade it in for the real thing.

He never stepped foot on that staircase or floating dock again.