Faith

Now. She blinked. 12:34.

The sun’s rays were at high tide, streaming in through the shuttered window and landing on the splintered wood floor, washing the shadows from the dust collected over the years. The cream-colored wicker basket lay next to the rocking chair by the door, its handle worn by the hands that grabbed it now. Rising from her chair, she stood hunched and padded across the floor in the exact pattern of footprints that were left in the dust, toward the doorknob, cheap and plastic. With a jerk the door opened wide, and the light of day invaded her eyes, accustomed to the gentle darkness of a closed room.

Walk.

The basket heavy in her hand, each step toward the cracked road as deliberate as the next, she felt the dry grass scratch the soles of her feet. Empty as the road was, she paid close attention to slowly and jerkily amble down its length in a path marked by broken asphalt.

Walk.

Pain shot up her back as the empty tree-lined road stretched on further, and her white sweatshirt bore no mercy in the afternoon sun, eyes deep in their sockets, set forward and glazed from sweat dripping across the forbidding landscape of her wrinkled face. Her destination within a half-hour’s journey, she stumbled and regained balance, never releasing the grip upon the basket.

12:57.

Her watch, a digital timepiece whose function had degraded over time, had worn away at her wrist, red and irritated by the plastic rubber wristband. Never once glancing at it, she remained fixed upon her target, an immaculate white house that loomed over the surrounding trees, casting a shadow in the sunlight. The house was well-kept, and although no cars remained in its driveway, signs of life were prevalent: a red ball left in the grass, sounds of a television escaped though an open window.

Look.

A garden spread across the manicured lawn, colors exploding from the vibrantly colored flowers emerging from green foliage to greet the sun. Ambling but a bit further toward the plants growing in the wide patch, she crouches near the flowers, eyes reluctantly tracing the petals of a tulip. Snatching it and wrenching it from its soil, she holds the flower aloft, before dropping it into her basket, clods of dirt falling from the uprooted plant.

Walk.

Tracing her footsteps back down the road she hobbled over her basket, ending her journey with a sense of finality as the road returned to her the sight of her own home. Each tentative movement toward the gaping door lent confidence to her step, and soon she had entered the room, sealing the door shut as sunlight spilled under the threshold.

Now. 1:21.

The roots of the kidnapped flower tangled and thick with soil, she once again held it captive in her fist as she set the basket down by the door. In one jerky motion, she cast the flower down upon the wood, scattering dirt across the dust, abandoned.

Done.

She smiled as she saw a day’s work had been done, sitting back in her rocking chair.