Short Stories (0 - 0K Words)
2015.08.15
"Hurry Up and Wait" - Holly Schofield (5419 words)
I dug my left toe farther into the loose dirt of the cliff and gripped a scraggly salal bush. The cell phone had landed on an outcrop a full meter away, beyond a patch of tall, yellowing grass. Western fescue. Slippery stuff, this late in the year. My right foot dangled above a large rock, slick with Oregon moss. A seagull shrieked far below, wheeling over the ocean. Don't look down. I eased onto the inner edge of the rock, shifting my weight off my aching left leg.
The rock overbalanced. I jerked back and listened to it crash against garry oak and scrubby arbutus as it fell and fell and fell. No splash - the tide was out.