Faded Houses Green

A finger rose above the wheat and sang its heart afire in the morning of the shadow draped across her full moon over beaches of ground glass.

Heaving swells of flattened cardboard boxes broke over the bow of the ship and glorified the almighty tensor in a four-by-four matrix with ontological meaning only three beings in this universe properly understood. Emma was one of the three, but she thought little about it. She had other gifts that were much more meaningful–more useful–to her for both the present and the future. She didn’t think much about the past except about her cat dying as is their wont, being given only nine lives to barter with the devil may care.

A can of silvered thimbles brought her back to the reality of shadows over the box of moonbeams that even a heavenly tensor could not illuminate the property properly. Herbert rang, but Emma didn’t answer straight away. Let him wait!

Originally published December 14, 2023