by Jake Barnes
A woman opens a gate and walks into her front yard. She shades her eyes and watches the yellow hills rising beyond the dirt field across the street. The air is dry and smoky from a fire some miles away. The air is cool. A pair of vultures is soaring in a circle high above the rising land.
A man makes his way down a boardwalk and around the side of a house with a handful of paper plates and crushed napkins and table scraps for the garbage. He opens a green can, tosses in the recyclables, closes the top, turns, looks up at the pale blue sky.
Out front a forgotten sprinkler is going in a neglected flower garden, water overflowing the bent wood borders and flooding the ground on either side. A crude stone wall is dark with water. A young stray cat is lying calmly on a half fence bordering the rock garden. A family of quail whispers across the street and disappears into the bushes on the other side of the fence. The cat is aloof, serene. It gets up, stretches, and taking its time, slips off the fence and paces slowly toward the street. When it gets to the end of the fence, it curls around the post like an eel.
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Inspired by heat and lack of rain.
This came to life and almost walked off the screen. *
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Good piece. Especially like the closing paragraph.
You captured the mood perfectly. Love this little micro, Jake. *
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Great capture.*
*, Jake. A really fine capture of detail. It's like watching a video scan.
Your imagery, as always, is superb.
Love that final image.*
That last line really perfectly closed this fine description.
Very nice indeed!
I like the detail in this. very evocative, Jake.
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So very visual, and with a nice mood. Lot's of mood. and visions *
Really nice. A miniature word-painting. I'd say this leans more toward prose poem than flash fiction, but ultimately those labels are unimportant.
Wonderful imagery, especially "A family of quail whispers across the street. . ." *
This makes me feel tired somehow but my eyes remain wide open.*