The Woman And The Usual Sigh

The first grey light of dawn peaked past the curtained sky. It illuminated the world in sombre tones, like a dying candle gasping for breath. It shimmered in and it faded out, hovering beyond the pallid horizon.

The woman stared as it did, sighing her usual sigh. Her hand reached up and switched off the headlamp wrapped tightly around her grey woolen cap. It helped her vision little. The darkness was so thick at night that the glow of the headlamp barely reached more than five feet, but five was better than none. The nights didn't feel quite so suffocating that way.

The woman walked all the while, never pausing her strides. She travelled along a dust-covered road that stretched on for miles before fading into the distance and the slowly retreating darkness. She was unsure of where it lead. There was no sign to read and she had no map to check. Not that it mattered. She had walked roads like this one many times and every one of them had led to the same place. They had always led to nothing. She knew all that awaited her at the end was emptiness, followed by yet another road. She had always known this and yet she had always walked, despite it. She always clung to the dim hope that, perhaps, this one might be different.

It had been raining all night with nowhere to take shelter. The road was adorned with deep pools of water and ashen mud, with a barren wasteland of rotten trees and brown, sickly weeds on either side. She had worried that the road would flood and wash her away with it, for the rain had fallen with such ferocity that after a few hours she was ankle deep in rainwater. Then it had stopped as sudden as it had come, like it had never been. The water draining away. The only signs of it ever happening being the soaked clothes she wore and the mud-filled puddles she walked through. Now every step she took had her slipping in the mud and cursing as she did; her loose and ragged looking rucksack weighing heavily on her shoulders. Her progress had slowed considerably, but still she walked.

Hours passed and nothing changed. She could see that the sun had risen higher, but the day had gotten no brighter. Colours remained drained and the day remained grey. The road had stayed damp and difficult to walk upon. The scenery remained constant - nothing but dead trees upon dead soil. Her clothes were still wet and her skin was still cold. A deep rumble echoed from her stomach. She brushed a dry tongue across her cracked lips. Her scavenged supplies had all but dwindled. She was surviving on borrowed time. She had managed to find some empty plastic bottles a few days earlier and filled them with rainwater, but she always stopped herself from drinking too much. The rainwater made her sick.

Through the haze of dust, the road made a sudden change. Like a gargantuan tower of ash and dirt, it sloped to the sky. She stopped at the bottom and stared. Muddy water trickled down, coming to a stop at her feet. She tightened the straps of her rucksack, tensed her muscles and took a series of wide steps up the hill. On the fourth step, her feet gave way and she fell with a thump flat on her face, slipping down with the mud and water.

She pushed herself up onto her knees and sat there for a long time. Her stomach grumbling, but ignored. She simply sat and stared up at this hill; her eyes blank and her mind lost in thought, but of nothing tangible. A cloudy daze of lightheadedness.

A crack of thunder shook the earth and soon she felt the stinging drops of rain upon her skin. She blinked and looked up as it cascaded around and over her, washing the grime from her grazed face. She stared past the heavy droplets to the murky haze of dust that was the sky and the faint orb that glowed beyond it. Her eyes closed and her mouth opened. A minute passed and then it shut again. The sour taste burned her throat. Her gaze flicked back to the road that sloped up high and eventually faded from sight. The mud and water flowing down now as the world washed itself free of filth. It appeared insurmountable.

She stood up, sighed her usual sigh, and began to climb.