Climate Ghosts • by Sheila Murray • 1

Hamilton Arts & Letters     Saura walks across an open field, through many trees, a forest that goes for miles. It’s been raining for days, and that’s good because she can travel further without spying eyes. There had been others walking with her until a couple of days ago, one with a baby and a small child who had already walked further than any child should. They’d gone in the rain, dissolved into the ditches or raised themselves into the trees. But rain inspired Saura’s energies. If it was the right kind, of course. And this was. She rode the current in the rain river; the rain was her river. Saura takes the best of it. Scooping the water to her mouth, drinking much more than she would ever find on an ordinary day.             Saura is transparent with water. Fluid and fast. On the outskirts of the next town she stops at the back door of a restaurant and waits for someone to come. Someone always does. There are no guarantees though: one day they may not. When he does, the man in his stained apron is not surprised to see her. He closes the door behind him and steps into the yard.             “You hungry?”             “Yes.”             “I guessed.” He pulls a pack from his front pocket and puts a cigarette in his mouth, “You want one?”             “No.”    [  >>>>>   FORWARD ]   + [Distillate © HA&L + Sheila Murray {from the Greek bios} -- the course of a life.]