Poetry and Writes

Pacific Crest (WRITE)

*A write for 10 minutes. Use the word SMOKE and the phrase THE LAKE WAS QUIET. (And I was not allowed to cross a single thing out.)*

The lake was quiet, the conifers serene. Amelia sighed as she removed her name-brand hiking boots, and set up her name-brand tent, and ate a lunch of name-brand breakfast bars. Mosquitos flocked to her ankles. She swatted them away and sat on the bare ground, her legs crossed. She then completed a routine of exercises before reclining and laying her arms to her sides.

She stared up at the sky, wishing it had that same stark clearness that it had when she first crossed into Washington, that kind of brightness that she felt interrogated her, spoke to her, talked her out of her growing loneliness. But no--but no--she was nearly to Canada, nearly to Canada, and it was nothing like she'd expected. The sky was bogged and humid, and dust infiltrated her hair, a bitter reminder of heat and ash and fire and--smoke. She felt the gravity of her predicament, and gave a wry laugh. It wasn't like she, Amelia Sturnseon, had begun this cross-country hike to find  herself, to save herself, to prove herself worthy. Worthy of what, anyway? She'd just had an urge one morning, started to pack.

But the smoke veiled her off from Canada.

She'd even made plans with her aunt and cousins to meet them in Victoria, to relax at a hotel, to drink and sleep and rejuvenate. Aw, God, it was all for nothing. She couldn't even bring herself to say aloud, "I only had eighty miles left."

She stood and patted the heat from her clothes. With a resigned sigh, she retired to her tent and slept. Why look at the beauties of alpine western Washington when it was all for nothing, anyway?