Into the Fall

by Tamara L. Miller

“What if we don’t get there?” he said. “Where?” He said nothing for a full minute. He was so still, Sarah assumed he had lost himself in thought. “To the end, when the kids are grown and we’re old and alone? What if it turns out to be too much?” he said. Sarah pretended not to have heard and walked away along the forest trail.

It was like that, grief. Dormant, but always ravenous, waking in its own time to steal away moments of contentment.

“The devil loves unspoken secrets. Especially those that fester in a man’s soul,”

“I don’t know that the universe cares enough about us. Way I see it, we’re nothing more than fleas on the back of a bear when it comes to the universe. Nature don’t care about right or wrong. There’s no cosmic retribution. Good people make mistakes; bad people do good. It’s randomness and chance in my mind. Call it the universe, call it the hand of God, call it dust sprites, it’s all the same. Life does what it does, and there isn’t always a reason.”