Beyond the Field
Speculative Fiction
After Margot died, she found herself in a field of her memories — nothing more than dirt and rock and stalk-like vegetation, similar to corn. For some reason, she knew she had to peel back the layers of her life to relive the close calls, the second chances — near misses.
Margot was transported to these memories one after the other as if they were a montage curated by her subconscious. She was brought back to the bottle of pills on the sink, the car crash in ’08, and the cold night standing on the bridge. She shivered, still feeling the mist and the fog — the suffocating sadness of it all.
She let it out, wept openly, freely, for there was no one — no living thing in sight — to see her tears. It was the first time she had cried in . . . forever, it felt. A storm inside Margot started to calm.
Silence settled in. Margot wiped her eyes and looked beyond the field, past her regrets — past her mistakes. She spotted a rainbow in the distance. It burst with color, with an unusual vibrancy in this dull, dead land. Maybe there was hope yet.
Margot took a deep breath and headed toward it.
When I started this piece, I set out to write a fifty-word story. Clearly, that didn’t happen, but I’m happy with the shape it decided to take.
Special thanks to Jimmy Doom (check out his Substack here if you aren’t a subscriber already) for providing the original inspiration with his prompt ideas of “layers” and “a near miss” — I ended up combining the two.
And thank you to everyone for being here to read my fiction. It means the world to me.
Take care and have a great week!
I wrote and delivered the eulogy this week for an elderly neighbor that passed away. This story was on my mind. I hope my friend Ellie spotted her rainbow and is well on her journey towards it.
Thanks for making our world a little bit better by sharing your gifts with us.
A fine metaphor. In the distance there is hope.