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The Silent Grass – A Microfiction

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In my mind is the scent of failure. It smells like burnt muffins stuck to the pan and crust blackened. The butter knife can only chip brittle pieces off to scatter across the counter top. Outside the window is green grass and yellow sun and I will never reach it.

He paces around the kitchen island. He breathes through his nose. I am wearing the floral print because he likes it. The one with the ruffled shoulders. The hem irritates my calves, but he wants to see me in this dress.

These heels pinch my toes. By twelve noon my lower back will scream. The grass would soothe. Instead the blades are a million guffawing children.

Leave that he says and make me some breakfast. Some eggs. I can't be late this morning. You made me late yesterday and you know they're deciding about that promotion.

Yes, dear, of course. I make sure to include the dear. I don't want to be locked in the bathroom. The sink faucet drips like bleeding eyes. Nine hours and eleven minutes he is gone to work. And sometimes he takes the light bulb and I can still see the grass talking.

The egg frying sizzle covers his breathing for three minutes and fifteen seconds. I can count seconds in my head. He doesn't know I have this gift from him. I eye the three one-sided locks on the open front door. The gold teeth of the middle deadbolt are a sideways grin I can taste.

The eggs are done. He sits at the table breathing. The eggs are scrambled with blue cheese and green onion and Brussels sprouts but I forgot to ask how he wanted them and I feel the darkness of the grass blade shadows roiling across the lawn and leaping at the window but there is nothing to do but dish the eggs onto the white plate with the blue iris print around the rim from his mother's house when she died, the last time I stood in an other's cloistered living room, the last time I felt grass.

I am beside him at the table and I set the plate down. The glass shard in my neck is burning. Oh he says scrambled. My breath is a frozen freight train. His hand and steel fingers scrape up my dress to my inner thigh. He picks up the fork. And begins to eat. His fingers grip me. For one. Two. Three. Mouthfuls.

Then I am tiptoeing back to the sink and the tray of burnt muffins and the knife chipping black crumbs and the grass is napping like my never child.

**o 0 o o 0 o 0 o 0 o**

He has gone to get his promotion. I am left in his house in the chair at the table across from his spot. The plate before his spot is laden with moist egg crumb. The fork and knife on the plate are clock hands.

He has gone. The grass has been silent for twelve minutes and thirteen seconds. I remember a book I once had about a poet who contemplated grass.

He has gone and in his haste to get ahead he forgot to lock the door and yes my legs, my legs are leaves of grass.

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Cover for “The Silent Grass” designed in [Canva,](https://www.canva.com/) using their stock photo as background.
Text written by @cliffagreen without the use of AI.
Creative Coin banner designed by @ [derangedvisions](https://peakd.com/@derangedvisions).
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