#SwiftFicFriday – Week 142 Winner!

Happy Tuesday!

Mark A Morris flew the highest this week and takes his first win!

Check out his piece below and congratulate him on Twitter:

Congrats on your #SwiftFicFriday win Mark A Morris! Check out his flash piece and show him some love #WritingCommunity

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The pathway wound to the left. There was an end to it, she knew, but she also feared what she wouldn’t find. There was an inevitability in cases like this. There were too many who’d disappeared in this forest, never to be seen again.

They’d hunted this whole area thoroughly for clues at first. There’d been signs of a struggle further along this trail but nothing conclusive. They’d repeated their searches using dogs, finding insufficient material evidence.

It’s time to give it up now, her colleagues had said. Harden your heart: look forward to the future. But they were speaking from the security of their own unaffected lives and knew nothing of the depth of her trauma. Closure was another thing they spoke about, albeit only occasionally. Closure was a matter for her and for her alone, although there were specialists they could recommend.

But specialists could do nothing for her. No amount of therapy or handholding would clear her mind. It’d been wrong for her to establish a connection, but what was done was done. It would be impossible to break it now, even if she’d wanted to.

And so, she was here again, living through Maria’s last moments. The track she’d have taken, following her steps through the mud. The fear and the indecision she’d have felt, not knowing the reason for her to be called here. The man with a blue woollen hat who’d been seen approaching the clearing.

Was he the one? Why had no one else mentioned him? Who was he and why had he come here if not to meet up with Maria?

A blackbird startled her, scolding her from his perch within the notch between two branches. She looked up, ashamed, ready to apologise.

And saw the hat. Woollen, damp, but pale blue.