Teri sat on the homemade pine bough bed, bony feet curled underneath her too-thin body. It wasn’t a comfortable position anymore, but she’d worked so hard to create her shelter from mud and rocks washed smooth from endless lake waves. Snow hissed against the tarp that overlaid her roof, while the fireplace crackled with cheerful flames.
The last of her firewood, and the last of her rose hip tea, heated in a tin can she’d found washed up on shore.
The last of her food, but she’d known that for a while. Teri hadn’t expected to find cheeseburgers lying around in the forest, but she’d thought she’d catch fish, or perhaps duck.
She hadn’t expected the complete lack of deer, the short days that prevented overharvesting her forage area, or the mushrooms being filled with worms.
The door shuddered against its leather latch. It had taken most of her energy to pull the door closed. Even then, it lay haphazardly against its frame, letting in the occasional gust of wind that flickered her fire.
She reached toward the door, but all her blurred vision showed were swollen knuckles amidst soot-smudged, wrinkled skin.
***
Leigh Kimmel prompted me this week with “The door is leaning against its frame. When you pull it open, you see….”
My prompt went to AC Young, who wrote about the rainbows giving away the leprechaun convention. Go read it!
