Photo: Rod Ramsey
Death Valley, CA
Licensed for non-commercial reuse.
Get Outta Town
a Haibun
Lola knew she had to get out, and get out fast. The plaintive sound of the train not that far from home (if she could call it that) flamed her sense of urgency. The women’s’ shelter north of town was not an option. They would find her there. It was an obvious place to hide.
Outside, cheat grass swayed in the desert’s evening wind, bending, like her, to the will of a force stronger than itself, a power unable to be controlled. Above, a hawk circled restlessly, looking for something smaller than itself to devour, to devour like the malignant evil that bedeviled her day and night.
She stuffed the money she’d been skimming from her tricks, piled her hair atop her head and covered it with a baseball cap. She’d make it just in time for the 8:05 to Elko where prostitution was legal. She’d just make it before he didn’t show up for his day job, before they would discover his body.
relentless wind blows
tumbleweeds scurry by the tracks
guilt scatters like sand
Join us today at dVerse Poetics where Bjorn invites us to hop aboard and write of trains. This is fictional.
Victoria C. Slotto, Author 
What a life the prostitute must live and you took me there. Excellent.
Tim
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It sounds as if she had a rough life! Quite sad really that she had this kind of life.
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Wow, great story Victoria ~ You kept the punchline at the head ~ love the haiku line of guilt scattering like the sand ~
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I meant at the end*
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This is beautifully crafted 🙂
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Excellent, Victoria. You built the pace and tension to perfection and the ending – scattering guilt – superb. My fave read so far 🙂
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Wow – some sting in the tail! And the senryu is wonderful. I’ve never seen tumbleweed, but your words conjure up a sense of desolation.
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What a story.. I could imagine it happening though it’s fictional, and that relentless wind with tumbleweed set the scene.
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Ooooo. I like this very much. Great punch at the end, and this:
“guilt scatters like sand”
Skillfully done, in tension and tone.
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Great story!
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