Joe Sanchez & Filomena Jack

Vignette for a Vignette  

She cursed as the twig cracked beneath her boot. The sound, nearly imperceptible to human ears, easily startled her quarry back into docility. The hreinin’s amenability served well for hunting and normal work but was not what she needed today. She cursed again as she trudged to find another vantage point to fade from the herds awareness.

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The gravel crunched and spat as she careened down the narrow road. Her father’s not quite anachronistic letter had found her, dragging her back into a life she had fought hard to leave behind.
The tiny dilapidated trailer loomed in the tree line, smelling of molder and rot instead of roasting meat and mulled wine. The sleigh to the side, once one of her favorite of her father’s toys, lay in shambles.
The letter, written with quill in a tight script, had given little indication as to what had caused him to abandon the trailer or the job, or why he needed her instead of one of her siblings.
She began a quick mental assessment of the things she would need to repair the slay as her truck came to a halt.

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She squinted towards the herd as she pulled her hood tight against the wind. She no longer remembered if it had been days or weeks since she had moved from the spot, having no way to mark the passage of time.
The herd had slowly forgotten her presence, gone back to playing and fighting amongst themselves, digging through the snow for scraps of food below.
She had had her eye on a spritely little doe for some time, hoping she would be the first. The little doe had a way of prancing and charging that kept even the adults on their toes.
She could not keep a small smile from creeping towards the corners of her mouth as she watched the little doe thunder towards an aggressive buck.
“You will be my Thunder”, she whispered to herself.
The buck lowered his head to meet Thunder’s charge and the hunter’s trace of a smile turned into a full-blown grin.
Instead of completing the charge Thunder leapt.
And Thunder began to fly.



by Joe Sanchez

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mixed media installation by Filomena Jack