Fiction: "the empty sky above"
the empty sky above
--for interfaceleader's prompt: "She would never go home again." I'm sure it isn't what she wanted, but... that's how these things go, I guess. Hope she likes it anyway!
The traffic has been monstrous, properly. Choked, clogged, congested. There isn’t a word terrible enough to describe the tightness that crawls up and settles into her chest as she sits waiting in the line of cars, red strobing gently against her eyelashes. Her breath catches in her chest and knots tie themselves at the back of her neck, knuckles bleaching to white and shoulders aching as her knees lock and burn with the tension of back and forth, back and forth.
It is just as she thinks, I will never go home again, that her arms make the decision for her and wrench the wheel to the side. The car turns and slides out of the line of cars and down a thin, winding road. It is tight with cars and shadowed by high buildings, so crowded that she knows the speed limit must be low. Nonetheless, she lets her foot press hard and drives fast, turning architecture into blurred lines as the sky above beckons.
Her velocity burgeons as she drives, rocketing away from the feeling of strangulation, toward something she cannot name. The sky shifts, clouds grumbling and opening their furled ends, peeling back to reveal the bright, blue-tinged void. She grins up at it, heart leaping, and is suddenly sure she will never see her home again.
The thought thrills her.
--for interfaceleader's prompt: "She would never go home again." I'm sure it isn't what she wanted, but... that's how these things go, I guess. Hope she likes it anyway!
The traffic has been monstrous, properly. Choked, clogged, congested. There isn’t a word terrible enough to describe the tightness that crawls up and settles into her chest as she sits waiting in the line of cars, red strobing gently against her eyelashes. Her breath catches in her chest and knots tie themselves at the back of her neck, knuckles bleaching to white and shoulders aching as her knees lock and burn with the tension of back and forth, back and forth.
It is just as she thinks, I will never go home again, that her arms make the decision for her and wrench the wheel to the side. The car turns and slides out of the line of cars and down a thin, winding road. It is tight with cars and shadowed by high buildings, so crowded that she knows the speed limit must be low. Nonetheless, she lets her foot press hard and drives fast, turning architecture into blurred lines as the sky above beckons.
Her velocity burgeons as she drives, rocketing away from the feeling of strangulation, toward something she cannot name. The sky shifts, clouds grumbling and opening their furled ends, peeling back to reveal the bright, blue-tinged void. She grins up at it, heart leaping, and is suddenly sure she will never see her home again.
The thought thrills her.