A short story

-- I really felt the need to write something. Don't dare to extract any meaning from it. --

I’ll finish it today, thought Casey Voorheis. Her straight brown hair was in a pony tail to prevent any potential snags. She thought about her project hourly when she was away. The sculpted lines of her latest creation even pleased her critical eye.

“You are talented, you just can’t see it for yourself! Casey! Quit apologizing so much. If I didn’t know better I’d think you were a Japanese schoolgirl who couldn’t keep up with me.”

He said the last part with a click of his tongue.

The whispers floated around the outside of the retrofitted hangar alongside a cool blue fog. The 1/8 th inch ventilation slits poured the colored light into the dusky atmosphere.

I know something is missing. It isn’t finished and the deadline is almost here. Incomplete meant a savage failure for Casey.

Martin was critical, too. He gazed from a nearby hilltop with military-grade binoculars. He had known Casey his entire life. Jealousy and admiration coupled with false compliments and unrealistic expectations. Martin lived in Casey’s wake of awe and support. Nothing would change the past; he could not join the crowd below. The polished, cold steel fit onto his eye’s orbits.

Although her instinct told her something was unfinished, Casey suddenly realized it could not be resolved. Not here. Two trees and three stumps carved out a fortress for children. Downhill from this natural enclave rested the skeleton of a tractor, rusted and shattered, its skin and function stripped for years.

In a different time Martin and Casey stumbled on the relic. “What do you think it is?” asked Martin, bewildered by the strangeness of its presence. He found himself admiring some quality of rebellion in the physics-defying balancing act of rusting steel.

The flock of impatient journalists and spectators was becoming irritated. Casey opened the doors to the hangar and realized the true magnitude of her crisis.