Craig McGeady is the Readers’ Choice in this week’s Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Challenge. The winning entry is decided by the popular vote and rewarded with a special feature here today. (In the case of a tie, the writer who submitted an entry first is the winner per our rules.) Without further ado, here’s the winning entry:
Long Haul
by Craig McGeady
Each step was an act of penance. Each supplication emerged from the depths of his heart. The road ahead was long and if each step brought him no nearer the end he wasn’t bothered. He had embraced the notion that this journey, taking a single step, lying prostrate, asking for forgiveness, slowly bringing himself to his feet and taking one more step, was going to last a lifetime.
At night, after the final rays of sunlight had faded from the sky, he would rest, curl into a ball beside the path, wrapped in a hessian blanket and fall asleep. His dreams were silent flights over rolling landscapes, up into blue skies and though billowing clouds. His arms were wide and he was free. When he woke, before dawn, his body would ache and his belly would rumble. He embraced the hollowness, telling himself it was part of the price he was destined to pay. A pebble from the earth to keep his mouth dry was the only meal he would allow himself.
As he stepped, bent double, lay against the ground, he would think. His mind a continuos echo of the past. He would see his crimes, his misdeeds. He would feel their anger stirring beneath his skin. He would burn anew with their pain and guilt. Then, from a part of himself set aside and external, a thought occurred. If he continued, without food or water, with his grueling regimen, with his penance, his suffering would be short lived.
