Published August 28, 2012
I pull each spine off the small cactus, one by one. Taking deep breaths of the dusty air, I let the heat of the day soak into my skin. Even the shelter of my small underground home cannot block out all of the heat of the sun. My mind wanders to the past. To many years ago, before I was born, to the time before war drove my family into the desert. I prick my finger on a spine. A song I didn't realize I was humming falters. Smiling, I pull the spine off my finger. The song was a lullaby my mother sung me to sleep with as a child. She told me it is from beyond the desert, from the lush, plentiful valley her and my father grew up in. How unlike the desert her old home sounds! I fear I may never know life outside the desert, for I have never been beyond its reaches. How can I when it stretches seemingly endlessly from horizon to horizon? Nothing but a vast wasteland dotted with cacti here and there.
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140,159 Literary Works • 673,032 Reviews
Heya!
I don't know if you intended this to be interpreted as religious, but that's what springs to my mind. Maybe I'm over-analyzing and you meant only to display narrow-mindedness, but to me, this speaks of the falling from Eden, where the wasteland is devoid of God's warmth or something. I'm not too familiar with the bible, so no huge pointers for me.
Even if this was a little short, I found it concise instead of lacking length. You said all you needed to say, and that's that. A longer piece would express more complicated feelings than mere longing, and is something that you might want to consider writing, if for nothing else than the fact that it'd make a good story.
I'd also like to add that I liked the using of the cacti to make the desert seem more desolate and harsh. Grammar-wise, I've nothing to add. Good writing.
Your's truly,
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