Ripples.
Blue, white, gold.
Spreading, sparkling, dancing across a once-smooth reflection of an autumn sky. Canary yellow kayaks dot the surface. Water-shiny black paddles splash in, silent out. Splashing wars break loose. White waves soak curls, and deepen t-shirt hues. There's a mist of calm in the sleepy sunlight. A strange silence of happiness spreading out, out in waves.
Blue, white, gold.
Ripples. 

The world waits, hushed.
Like it does before a thunderstorm. Except this is worse.
It's the anxious calm before possible disaster.
The flags are dancing about, but I can't hear them. I hear the far-off call of a swallow, and the Williams' English Bull Dog next door. A snapdragon shivers hesitantly in the surprising chill. It's summer; the thermostat reads 65 degrees. The green cherry tomatoes appear orange in the red tint emanating from a smoke-clogged atmosphere. The horizon hurts...

Trees thrash back and forth like a spring door stop. Pink rose petals are torn from their thorny stems. No birds are flying; cuddling low in their weightless nests. An empty paint can rattles across our graveled driveway, like Ichabod, searching for what he has lost.
   The corn stalks, once tall as teenagers, now ripped from the dry earth and wilted by a persistent sky. Chicken feathers, red-gold in the sun, perk about in every direction, as though wishing...

Vibrating tingles my fingertips.
Phone.
Adrenaline washes over me in dizzying nausea; my stomach flips. Sweat crawls through my palms as I feel for the soft click of the power button.
The screen flashes to life; like my heart.
The Instagram logo twinkles up at me; I deflate, releasing a breath I didn't realize I had been confining. 
Hot tears are forced from my eyelids like lava.
Not today. Maybe not ever.

The horizon is choked with thunder clouds, like a dark wave in a tempest.
   Above this threatening display is hope. Blue sky and sunlight. Stratus clouds slide across the sky, in contrast to the busy Monday morning; everyone's going somewhere!
   Dew clings to fragrant mint flowers, their tiny purple bursts peek hopefully towards the sky for a drier afternoon.
A forest green Ford rumbles by, a pale face flashes in the driver's window. It's Mr. Cox, a neighbor,...