Abandoned

The sun is setting, casting long shadows over the landscape, and a golden light on the three figures moving through the tangle of bleached weeds. The tallest figure is in the lead, his features obscured by glasses and a dark beard: he is carrying a camera, and has a look of intense concentration on his face. Behind him, following close as a shadow, is a girl with skin like ivory and a swirl of copper hair falling to her waist. Her eyes dart back and forth, always searching… Drifting in the wake of these two, inhaling deeply on a cigarette, is the slightest figure- another girl, but dark-haired and wearing a vivid red pea coat. So bright is this coat that, combined with the trail of smoke, the girl looks like a small fire creeping among the debris.

They are making their way toward a dilapidated old building- abandoned many years ago and now rotting in on itself. Old tires spill out from crumbling walls, and an overwhelming stench of oxidation has the fair skinned girl wrinkling up her nose. She makes an inarticulate noise of disgust.

“I know,” says the fire-girl. “The price one pays for art, eh?”

The bearded boy grunts something that might be a laugh and enters the structure. With a sigh, the fair-girl follows, careful not to touch any of the jagged edges. The fire-girl lingers in the setting sun, finishing off her cigarette, listening to the dry-bone rattle of two empty seed-pods brushing together in the wind.

“The price one pays,” she mutters to herself.

(Abandoned)