Who is Walking Toward Me So Early This Morning?

 

Joan Leotta

 

          It’s early, gray not bright. No time for coffee. Rushing out but I pull on my coat as I head toward the bus stop. I need to get to work early. Because the thick fog extends even to the sidewalk I step slowly over our cracked sidewalk silently cursing my inability to rush, reminding myself the bus will also likely be running a bit slow since the roads are also shrouded in low, wintery mist.

        Most mornings maybe one or two neighbors are at my stop, but today, I’m catching the earliest bus and no one else around here works needs to arrive downtown when I will so I resigned to waiting alone today. Almost at the stop, I hear a noise and look up, hoping it is not the bus—not quite yet, I say to myself. It’s not the bus.

        The noise is from the sidewalk ahead of me, between me and the bus stop. A group of large men

approaching. My heart pounds. I clutch my purse. Fear freezes my steps

What are so many large men doing on this sidewalk so early? A breeze ripples. The mist dissipates a bit and I realize what I’ve spotted is the group of birch trees next to my bus stop.

They are bending in the breeze, bending toward me. Usually I’m the one moving.

Yet today, definitely they are approaching me, not just bending in the breeze. Their limbs reach out through the mist to grab me. I want to run back home but the fog and my fear have rooted me to the ground.

         I cannot move. Yet they still come.

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Joan Leotta
Author, Story Performer
“Encouraging words through Pen and Performance”

Folk, Fairy, and Personal Tales of friendship, kindness, food, family, and strong women.

Now also Presenting Author visits by Louisa May Alcott

As writer, Nominated for Pushcart, Best of Net, Best of Micro fiction, Western Peacemaker Award 

Awardee in Presswomen, Robert Frost, Silver Arts, Dancing Poetry

"Feathers on Stone" poetry chapbook available from me and at

https://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/feathers-on-stone-joan-leotta/

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        Hillary Lyon founded and for 20 years acted as senior editor for the independent poetry publisher, Subsynchronous Press. Her stories have appeared lately in 365tomorrows, Black Petals, Sirens Call, Night to Dawn, 50 Word Stories, Legends of Night drabble series anthology, and Revelations drabble series anthology. She’s the Art Director for Black Petals and is also an illustrator for horror & pulp fiction magazines. 

https://hillarylyon.wordpress.com/