Fight

Night was settling in. Echoes of the evening songs began to bounce from the trees to the floor of the forest. But she sat.

Silent. Still.

She knew the flashlights would come shortly. The calls would fill the empty spaces. But she would tuck in. Stay hidden from the reality that waited beyond these branches and leaves.

She needed to hide.  She needed to lose herself and believe she hadn’t heard those words today.  She wanted to either leap into the past or fast forward to a distant future. She didn’t want the journey these circumstances placed on her today. Instead, she ran. She ran with fury. She ran as far and deep as she could move.

But the silence was only there on the outside. Inside she screamed. Inside the words shouted and condemned her. 

Cancer. Tumor. Chemo. Radiation.  They repeated and bounced from her heart, to her stomach and to her head swarming like bees.

In the dark she settled to her knees. She collapsed and lifted the dirt into her hands. A shift took place in her veins, like the path that meandered in front of her. She clutched the soil and dropped lower to the ground. The tears began to quench the soil below her. Her scream moved from within her and out to the air. The sobs were muffled with words that tried to spill out. She inhaled deeply, and exhaled with grief. Finally she sprawled to the ground, exhausted from the race away from life and the emotion that pulled her down.

On her back, she stared into the darkness. The questions seem to be etched there into the sky. How can she fight this? Where would her strength come from?  But over, and over…why? Why?

She searched the stars for answers. She listened to the wind and the voices of night to see if they would whisper the answers that she needed to hear.

But the only sound breaking the silence was her heartbeat. The rhythm of it calmed her. A peace seemed to reach from every direction and wrap itself around her. The pounding of her heart carried with it a fight, a resolve. She wouldn’t surrender, she would meet this battle with a vengeance. She would grasp her fingers around faith.

As if on cue came the voices and lights, revealing the soldiers of love that would surround her and march beside in her in this battle. Their arms carried her and she let go and allowed it.

From behind her she heard a chorus from the sounds of night, “Fight, fight, fight.”

 

I am linking up with Write on Edge this week. My prompt is the photo above.  It has been a while and I am feeling quite rusty! I do love feedback though.