{CROSSWAYSNET}

Dirt and sky. She looks up as the shadow passes. Her whole life has been a shadow. Now the late afternoon sun returns as a delayed rain pelts her forehead. The devil’s beating his wife.

“Well, now he’s got someone else to beat,” she says bitterly. “This devil’s done with his beatings. I’m free.”

The rain hardens, threatening hail. The trickle down her arm creates a streak of brown between her fingers. She opens her palm and stares at the wettened soil. She lets the rain wash it into the gaping maw before her. Splatters thump the plain casket below.