Grown Ups

It was just before morning and the heat was dry. She poked holes through the knots of her hair with an index, dragging stubborn strays along the way. Twisted, she sat. Her knees were burnt with remnants of crimson clay, still crusted from the day before. Streaks of dirt coiled her beanstalk calves. Growing agitated, she sifted through the loose ends between her knuckles and watched them glide into the wind like a lost balloon.

Halfway from home and the other half nowhere, she waited in the car with one foot on the pavement and passenger door wide open. She rested the other on the dash as she excavated wads of tawny mud from her shoe with a plastic knife.

Suddenly, she heard laughter. She looked up from the artifact only to find an endless sky, alone. The echo of a distant cackle trickled down the basin, quickly like a heavy rain, then silence.

She scanned the empty parking lot, their car the only one in sight. "It's nothing to worry about," she naively concluded. Nervously and cautiously she move towards the larger boulders protruding from the Earth.

She stepped over the tiny rocks like she would a tightrope, steady and unwavering. 

"Hello?" Her voice cracked.