Fila stood by the Packard as a hot wind blew gritty dirt devils around her. She stared at 26 acres of Blackland prairie, a gambler’s final gamble. A gusher, he vowed, Texas gold. Fila saw only dirt, a dry hole gone bust, but it was risky to tell him no.
Susan Hunt lives in Texas, a place that informs her writing as well as her history. Now a retired technical writer and editor, Susan writes flash fiction about Fila, whose history is entangled with her own.
Fila stared at the map, tracing the 800 miles that lay ahead. Mules hitched, wagon loaded, farm sold. Nothing of home, of him, remained, save the shotgun he’d carried to the barn that day. She’d keep the shotgun as a reminder when memories of love and life wanted back in.
Susan Hunt is a retired developmental editor and technical writer. She writes for herself these days, imagining other lives in other times. She thinks that 50-words are just about enough for her attempts at fiction.