Swamp Ghosts
Late at night, walking down the road past houses that we’re looking to buy (one I like is in Tupelo next door to Molly, but it’s downtown – near Wendy’s – I think of getting a loan and buying it myself as it’s only $65,000). I wind up on a stretch of rural road alongside the woods which are rising with swamp water. A large crowd is walking behind me, but I keep losing sight of them and have to wait for them to catch up. I’m singing a song under my breath from a children’s movie and twice I step on the DVD in the flooded road (it has a blue baby monster on the cover). Some girls from school in the crowd catch up to me and are having a conversation, oblivious that I’m there. Everyone’s muddy and scratched up. For the duration of the walk, a light shines in my immediate front for about five feet like a headlight or flashlight, though I don’t carry one, and whenever I look over my shoulder for the group they are always surrounded by fading light.
– December 23, 2009
© Rachel Sapp