In the Pines – 300 Word Flash Fiction- FWG

“In the pines, in the pines where the sun never shines, And I shivered when the cold winds blow.” I sat atop this mountain expecting to hear My Grandmother make the sound that resembled the howling wind just like she had done a million times before when I played her favorite song.

That noise was an actual parts of the lyrics and always sent a cold chill down my spine as if a draft really blew in my direction. I believe it was just the Spirit within me reminding me of how blessed I am.

This was the one place I could come to find solitude, to be alone with my thoughts and to mourn the loss of My Grandmother.

She wasn’t my biological Grandmother but she and my Pa were all I had. They found me wandering through the streets of Jackson – Dirty, Shoeless and with a soiled diaper when I was just a toddler. She had fallen in love with my red tinted hair that was much like her own. The red hair that gave her the temper she was known for around town, the temper that she used to persuade child services to let her and my Pa bring me up in their home. I was blessed beyond belief. 

I knew it wouldn’t be long before my Pa came to rescue me from my own pity party to which I was the only one in attendance. Pa was on up in his seventies and didn’t doubt one bit that my Grandmother was with the Good LORD.

I strummed that old guitar a little longer before I heard his Cub tractor making it’s way up the hillside. Why he continued to make that steep journey, I would never know and especially at his age. He flipped that tractor at least twice in the past years. 

“Come on down now boy. There ain’t enough Pine trees in Mississippi to bring your Granny back and if there were, she wouldn’t want to be back in this cruel world anyway.”