Laurie was the waitress of a desolate diner out past the bend of Crawfish Creek. Twelve hours after she arrived to shift, she left. The summer sun settling into the leaves for the night left a biting chill that swept through her legs under the ill fitting pinafore her meagre paycheques obligated her to wear. It was dark by the road but she'd already adjusted her eyes. Sixteen steps from the door of her work was where the street lamps thinned, by step thirty eight she was almost in complete darkness. She played games with herself as she moved. Challenging the blood in her veins to race and still with the imagery she conjured in her tired, subdued mind. Murderous hands reached out from the gloom and grabbed her, to then caress her with the soft touch of a mother. Then to be replaced by the strike of an enemy, then the grip of a lover maddened only by the consumption of premarital sin. Her mind was always the HBO content she couldn't afford at home. Step sixty seven and she was picturing an army of wolves racing from the trees to devour her. Or was it to recruit her? To let her run beside those snarling peers and be trained and praised as their apostle. Her soft brown eyes would sharpen into haunting shades of glazier amber or the sky blue of an arctic dawn, she'd snarl too and foam from her jagged mouth as she'd been taught.
The last thin line of day screamed through the low clouds as a violent pink. The beauty in those colours was hideous next to the creeping black. Such awe didn't belong by this street. It didn't belong in the plain sky to be absorbed by this plain woman. She was the solo frontier of her own darkness. Step one-hundred-seven and the pink hues of day were bleeding through the dusky advance. Her head changed tricks. What was that sun she saw? A Caribbean mirage, she closed her eyes and listened to the oaks become palms, the pigeons turns parakeets. The power of denial so strong she began to feel grains of sand beneath her toes and could taste the salty lick of the soft sea air embrace her senses and torture her reality. Her skin shivered and she felt for shells with her fingers. Step one-six-one. A crack behind her brought her back. She turned to find no adversary at her rear but the thrill of the moment brought a broad smile to Laurie's grease kissed face. She'd lived by the creek all her life, felt the pinches of leeches as she swam it's contence, the brunt of lovers still burnt her every summer even as she left her early twenties. Laurie had a young heart but a mind as old as the creek itself. She'd never found any danger on this walk, at least not outside of her intensely active imagination, even once she crossed the path of a grizzly they locked eyes as the brave waitress froze and then the beast sauntered away. The creek was safe for a local piece.
She returned her attention to the impossible futures that swam through her skull. In one she was a pinch faced magazine editor, ordering top shelf whiskeys at a flatteringly lit bar and scalding a young waitress for holding her tray so precariously when it housed such an artisanal liquor. In another she was tanned like a vintage leather satchel. Step two hundred. She was in Italy having been whisked away whilst her skin was still porcelain and delectable, she married in the ethereal gleam from venetian waters. Her husband span her around as they kissed with the fury of a thousand war torn couples. She saw children, education, career, tragedy. She was so lost in fantasy by step two hundred twenty that she didn't notice the increase of cracks behind her. Crack, step, crack, step, crack. She'd reached the bend in the creek and her impossible futures saluted her impoverished past right there by the still pool. The moon was trapped in the lake. It sang silently in the rippling tide, calling to the lost souls of the dingy town of Crawfish. Laurie didn't hear it's futile song as the life was choked out of her. She didn't know the grip, it wasn't one she'd imagined before and if it was it certainly didn't feel the way it did in her fantasies. Where was the thrill? Where was her bravery? She just felt bile burning her throat and the struggle of her lungs pushed all her futures out with their final gasps. All she was or could be floated to the bottom of the creek where she'd learnt to swim, learnt to kiss, and ultimately learnt to die. She met the moon beneath the waterline and the two kissed like old friends brought together for a funeral, each fleck of joy tainted with anguish. The lament from the waters though silent moved the whole town in a grievous samba that night. Laurie was the waitress of a desolate diner, out past the bend of Crawfish Creek.