Night Creatures

Part of Sandy's new exercise regime was to wake at dawn and walk the fields. Late summer sun skimming the golden crops, that rippled with the wind's caress, filled her with joy. It invigorated her far more than a spin class, wearing lycra.

She liked it especially when she saw the loping fox; the timid hare; the lumbering badger; the haunting owl: the nocturnal and the early risers.

As summer tailed off and early morning's dark calm resisted the tug of the sun, she knew that her days with the rippling fields would be over as the big machines savagely mowed them down. She liked the cover the fields provided, an intimacy away from others; only herself and the night creatures knew she was there.

She mourned their future loss until the day before the harvest. The machines were parked: once light fully arrived, there would be cutting.

She decided to enter the crop this time, to savour it, usually only skirting around it. She stood and looked about her. She was one in the middle of a sea of gold. She breathed in deeply, closing her eyes.

When she opened them, she was not alone.

In her peripheral vision, she saw something. When she turned to look directly, it was gone.

Again. A black form. She centred on it.

Gone.

In an instant, serenity had been usurped by uneasiness and she looked warily around her. There! Again, not in her line of sight but there was definitely something there!

She needed to move. She started to walk towards the edge of the crop warily but as she got closer, the more quickly she moved.

Faster.

Faster!

Panting with panic and exertion, she sprinted until she reached the gate and turned just in time to see what looked like a long, thick, black tail disappearing into the crop. If she had had to describe it further, she would have said "reptilian". One heard stories of sightings of big cats but this? The stalks cracked with its retreat.

What was it? She didn't know but when she heard the roar of the combine as she walked home, she no longer saw it as a machine of savagery.

***

366 words

A little more time today but back to a drabble tomorrow!

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