Little Red

Suzie let the winter breeze bully her umbrella. It whipped around the clear plastic dome, creating playful eddies. Her blonde hair wanted to join it; exploratory tendrils escaped her hood, delighted in the thunderous air, and stuck to her tear-stained cheeks.

God, how I miss you. The thought no sooner crystallised than a fresh wave of grief broke inside her. Six little years on and I still miss my big, bad wolf. How odd, she thought, that all the growing up I ever did, still leaves me typecast in the role of Little Red?

Suzie grinned as she considered the sight she must make to any passing hunter or hiker. Here she was, a middle-aged woman of less than middle height, dressed in her red winter coat, and stood in the middle of a clearing, giggling with the misery of a widow. The smirk stole across her lips. Even in memory, Wolfgang had the power to encourage a mischievousness the pair once reveled in.

Six little years, she mused. The number seemed a strange way to count the days. How about, two-hundred and thirty-eight breakdowns in public? Or, fifty kilos of comfort food nestling in the nooks and crannies where his hands once lingered? Or, over two-thousand sleeps with my arms around a pillow instead of him? Which ever way Suzie looked at it, six little years seemed a pathetic sort of sum.

A howl broke though the chatter of the wind in the trees. For a moment, she hoped beyond reason it was him, but then her gaze was drawn back to the monument; the rusted axe, sunk deep into a tree stump.

It seemed the world was full of woodcutters, these days, when what it really needed was more sheep in wolves clothing. She howled back. Her wail like an angry funeral dirge. In answer to it came the patter of little feet. Her sons. His sons. The pack.

(325 words)

Written for "Rising Stars Shining Brighter"  [E]