Quintessentialist

A soft wind blew, scattering the chrysanthemums across neighboring graves, dyed black and white in the avant-dawn glow.

She curled her fingers around the long blades of grass, rubbing the cold earth across her palms, crumbling the dirt within her fists. Her hands throbbed with Sissy’s beating heart.

The old woman, for that was what she was, groveled above her sister’s grave, feeling now the sagging skin below her eyes, and her wrinkled fingers; she felt the straw-like texture of her hair and her chapped lips; she felt the brittle bones inside her body, stacked like rusted iron rods so crimson red they’d bend and perish.