Into the Fall

by Tamara L. Miller

She felt more like Homer Simpson than Ralph Waldo Emerson: oafish and out of her depth.

Filing this under comparisons i never expected to see

Sarah had once said that life was better when you acted like a sapling in the wind, twisting and bending when needed, so that the roots stay strong and whole.

Who says that

She wouldn’t tell him about her suspicions or the secrets that a family keeps.

Girl.

She hadn’t told the police the whole truth. There was no point mentioning Matthew’s absences of late, the tiny frustrations that crept into the day-to-day of a marriage, the temptations that might lurk in the arms of someone else, someone new.

Jesus christ Sarah

“They say the wendigo is a forest-dwelling spirit with the body of an oversize emaciated man and the skull of a stag. It’s not good or evil, though it does have a rather gruesome habit of hunting people. They say no matter how much it eats, it’s never satisfied, and so it’s always hunting. But the most fascinating bit of the legend is that the wendigo’s victims are cursed to become wendigo themselves, doomed to hunt the forests claiming more victims.”

Loveeee native folklore

How not to feel insignificant in the face of a star-filled sky?

“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.

Sus af

How had Matt managed to slip out to the bakery without leaving a single trace in the snow? She held the puzzle for a moment, scarf in hand, before letting it trickle away like melting ice.

Hmm

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,”