The Living

Marguerite ducked into the wind and rode the mare through the darkening valley, past the crooked shapes of abandoned homesteads and towards the sun as it slid behind the hard, perfect line that expressed a distance she hoped to one day know, but could not yet. The midwife was retrieved and Marguerite turned back. Sudden-night’s long, close blackness broke open at the appearance of a thriving fireplace seen through a distant window, and Marguerite kicked the horse harder, until they got there, to the light, at which point she pulled the reins, and the horse’s gasping body joined the breaking noise of a baby’s first shrill breaths inside the house.