Lauren--Part Forty-Nine

Splog # 180

Forty-Nine

 Austin passed through the gap in the fence and Lauren followed. She found herself facing what seemed to be a fairly normal landscape. She was standing at the start, or finish, of a dirt track that led over a lawn of fading yellow grass, not at all similar to the artificial green she'd encountered below. The track led to a somewhat shabby looking bridge. She couldn't tell from her present position exactly what the bridge spanned, but hopefully there would be water in which she'd soon be able to wash. There was a large rock on the other side of the bridge and as she looked at it, she wondered whether her assessment of normalcy was altogether accurate. The rock appeared to be glowing. Not the entire surface, but just somewhere deep inside. As if it were molten at the core and she could see the inner heat.

 A touch on her hand took her attention from the rock and she looked down to see Austin nudging her with his head. Mae was standing beside her with the horse right behind.

 Austin started heading up the path and they all trailed him in single file. Gazing around herself as they traveled, Lauren observed the same inner glow at various points of the countryside. By the time they reached the bridge, she had noticed it in a tree at the point where its branches started to stretch away from its trunk, in a bush by the path right where its stem plunged into the earth, and once she saw a spark of light moving through the grass, like an ambulatory diamond. She figured it must be some insect with a shiny carapace, but wondered how it could gleam like that without any sunshine to reflect.

 When they stopped at the bridge, she turned to Mae and asked,

 "Have you noticed..."

 "I have," Mae interrupted. "It doesn't seem quite - quite - "

 "I don't think so either," Lauren said. "It's almost like everything had swallowed a star."

 Austin barked a couple of times from the center of the bridge and Lauren made a visual inspection of what was below it.

 "Austin, there's a little stream. I'd like to go down and wash up a little. Come on." And she started picking her way down a gully that had a thread of water slowly coursing through it.

 By the time she reached the bottom, Austin had joined her and she gingerly put the toes of her bare foot in the water. She gave a small squeak and then informed Austin, "It's not that bad."

 She looked around until she found a stone standing in the water the right size to sit on and carry out her cleaning program. She took a seat, planted both feet in the water and leaned over to scrub her bare foot. As she did, her eyes became aware of a glow coming from the stone she was sitting on.