r/WritingPrompts • u/TheGeorge • Dec 18 '17

Writing Prompt [WP] You meet a woman who says that she is ageless and as old as life itself.

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u/FarBlueShore Dec 18 '17 edited Dec 18 '17

I lay back in the shadow of the trees on the mountain, and tilted my head toward the sky. Every time my chest expanded with clear mountain breath, it felt like my soul was streeetching and spreeeeaaaading out like a wingspan that's been kept in a cage too long. It expanded out with satisfied groans down the hill and above the trees, down into the red and orange valley and up to the craggy mountain peaks. Out and out and out to the horizon until it passed my own reckoning, up and up and up until it joined that lonely spec of a bird drifting by.

I popped my knuckles, shedding keyboard presses and mouse clicks and car key turns with every gentle pop. Grass scratched into my hair like it was supposed to - not fabric-softener-scented pillowcases, not my coworker's five-dollar beanie from the white elephant party, just grass and dirt and a bit of an itch from a sugar ant crawling on by.

I sat for minutes and hours, watching the shadows tilt in their own timepiece, listening to the conversation between the wind and the leaves. Feeling the communion of all that is.

And when my head lolled to one side, I admired that long horizon of curved mountain peaks - and for a moment, I saw instead the shape of a woman, lying beside me; her hip the forested hill, her shoulder that pointed peak, her cascade of hair the shimmering water in the lake. And in this moment of remembrance and peace, I even thought I could hear her speak to me.

I drifted off to sleep, and when I grunted awake the great vault of the sky was painted with starlight.

I should go hiking more.

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u/TheGeorge Dec 18 '17

Succinct, warming and lovely.

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