by Ashley Delvento

        Much like my mattress, the only indents the mud are my own. Sunlight melts between the
thickening forest branches. The waxy coating my moisturizing lip balm left behind pulls with
each inhale. My lips crack and blood pools within them.
        What a waste of money.
        I shove my hands into my pockets. The spa manicurist spent an hour making my cuticles
supple and I won’t let the night air ruin them.
        The spa had everything to ease me back into an attractive skin. Between desire stirred
perfumes and integrity layered anti-wrinkle creams, something was bound to work. Hair itches to
break through my freshly waxed forearm but I fight the urge to scratch. I wouldn’t make my
purchase moot. Without porcelain skin, there was no way I could compete with the bartender’s
daughter. Tonight, my husband would see me as the beauty he once lusted for. Tonight, when the
cacophony of the night finally rests, I would not sleep alone.

        An offbeat cricket strangles out the delicate thumps of falling leaves.
        Underbrush reaches towards my forearms and threatens to swallow me whole. Had I
missed a sign? Was my eyesight getting worse? Mom didn’t need glasses until her thirties. Was I
destined to go blind before I reached twenty-six?
        I unhook a bramble for my tights and flick it into the thicket below. A small snag stares
back at me.
        Maybe I should turn back. I could see if there was an overnight elixir that convinces the
crows to release their talons from my eyes. The fractals those damn crows leave behind have
surely pushed my husband out the door on more than one occasion. They have beds at the spa.
Empty beds.
        I can’t go another night alone.
        The crickets chatter around me.
        “Laugh it up,” I say into the darkness. “You shrivel quicker than I do.”
        The chattering echoes my tone. The vibrations surround me. Grave. Each round sounding
less and less like six-legged conversations. Pointed. Less and less like a force I could outrun.
        Or is my hearing sunsetting as well?
        The crickets pause in the first moment of silence since my trek began. Dry breaths pull
through my throat. Whatever is out there is equally afraid of you as you are of it, I remind
myself. If you turn back now, he won’t think twice about visiting her tonight. I pull my breath
slowly through my nose. Hollow branches fuss over the open air.
        I exhale.

        The trees breathe back.
        I’m running directionless, but any path is better than staying here. Mud splatters up my
calves as roots and logs pass by. Hitched to my heels, bits of dead leaves ride through the air.
And then I’m the one flying – no, falling. The mud that masks my face and hands lacks the spa’s
signature clay blend.
        Another blanket of silence smothers the forest. Gossip resonates through the leaves. The
darkness drags the thing closer. Mute or not, I feel it watching.
        I tug against my boot. The root squeezes back. My heel pushes further into the silt that
ensnares me. The chattering swells to encompass me, fighting to contain me before the Earth.
        I claw into the dirt. Slivers of fingernails disappear into the vermicast. Ache spreads up
through my bones and into my teeth as pebbles peel away my fingertips. The toe of my boot
shifts as I toss a clump of soil aside. I grasp onto my ankle and wrench it free. The snap echoes
of frail bones and hollow wood.
        Thorns press a warning into my back. This path is wrought with pain, they billow, turn
back, turn back. But the rustling grows nearer and the chattering grows deafening. I feign
ignorance, sliding into the bush’s embrace. Thorns descend into my skin, letting layers of lotion
mingle in my veins and coagulate the oxygen.
        A long shadow cast from a nearby tree splits in two as the choruses converge.
        Its hunched spine clatters along a low branch, a warped xylophone hitting in succession.
The footsteps, a stream of displaced leaves, stop in front of a boot print. My boot print. Cracked
lips rip its melted face, her melted face, into a toothless grin.