Joining with Amber Haines as she poses writing challenges ‘abstractions of the concrete’.

Today? THE ROCK…

I like the quiet. I drive my back roads in the Canadian wilderness. They are home, I am on automatic, cruise control. I wind through the fogs heavy bottom, I’ll cross over Daves creek freezing in the culvert beneath me, past the volunteer fire hall, I’ll wind up our driveway full of switchbacks. The snow has frozen everything to silence, even the trees hold steady and still. The sounds stop short in all this snow, echoes absorb into the soft white. My man might meet me at the door, we will settle into the quiet corners, the kids fill all the other spaces, a dull roar.

I can drive that eight kilometers and not pass another soul, so when he shot that rock clean out of no where  it struck like a bolt, the electricity clear through me, the thunder shaking me from my daydreams. My heart started to flutter, I let it run away, my imagination too. That cliff there, just to the left, my tires touching gravel. Speed and adrenalin make terrible friends to me…my sense flees quicker yet. That crack there where the rock struck, I can’t stop watching it. How it creeps further each day splitting my vision clear in two. It creates a blind spot, I don’t know, it might even get me in trouble again. I will get the glass replaced in spring. Till then I will try to keep my eyes on the straight path ahead of me, even while the sun in that chip creates broken rainbows on my dash.