[June 6] [Original] The Five-Year Doritos run

[treeflamingo.livejournal.com]

Title: The Five-Year Doritos Run
Day/Theme: June 6, deep roots
Series: Original, one-off
Wordcount: 180
Rating: G
A/N: I had a miserable time titling this little piece, and I'm afraid the title I've given up at decided on implies a more lighthearted story than I've written... oh well!



After the funeral she went to buy a bag of Doritos, and came back five years later with one small suitcase and the shortest haircut she’d had since she was two. They asked her where she’d gone - must'a been a helluva traffic jam - and she told fantastic stories that were mostly lies, because the truth was too much to talk about it. They told her about their changes, and she felt like a cherry branch grafted onto an apple tree, taped up and wrapped together

Time passed.

They showed her their constancies, and she felt her secrets leaking out her seams. She asked them how they’d been, and they told her where they’d like to go. She settled into routines; she stretched out her memories like fresh scars. She pushed out, slowly, softly, like leaves. And she found herself sinking into a rambling, woody history, grown by a soul that was gone, plucked like ripe fruit, but whose scent permeated everything like good soil.

Slowly, softly, she found herself growing into her own old roots.