Sticks and Stones

• Genre: Contemporary Fiction

• Honorable Mention (Globe Soup Monthly Micro Contest/Theme: Forest)

Our mornings were filled with tangled sheets, scattered toys, and tiny footsteps chasing clattering paws across hardwood floors—oh, the beautiful clamor. We didn’t mind waking early to a house full of life, did we, my love?

You mourn alone, our essence lingering. Echoes of gnashing metal at the forest’s edge on that fateful day still cut deeply. You cast sticks and stones into the empty rooms of our house until you have nothing left to throw. Your venomous words mask heartache, self-inflicted wounds slicing like a knife.

Patience, sweetheart. We’ll be waiting for you in the pines’ shadows.