5 - Kathleen
342 Words
5 - Kathleen
This reckless young hiker was a girl!
Fancy that. I should have noticed, even with the bulky cargo pants (now thoroughly rinsed with salt water) and shapeless olive-green T-shirt, despite the short, almost buzz-cut hair (even with a finger-thin braid jutting off the brown buzz).
She looked in her twenties, around the age Stel would have been today…
I shut down the thought. The skin on the lower knee was reddening, in a pattern I had seen at least twice before.
“Got to take my things,” she hissed, her arm indicating the rock.
“Stay there.”
Retrieving her things was the affair of a minute. When I had walked up the rock earlier, I was too irked to notice the pair of walking shoes next to the bag. I lugged her things down the slope, marveling at the weight of the pack.
She winced as she pulled her socks in.
Jellyfish stings were painful. I helped her putting on the shoes, a simple gesture reminding me of doing the same for Stella a long time ago. Not so different. As she stumbled up, I firmly took her pack and shouldered it.
“I can do it…” she began, before biting her lips.
“Concentrate on walking. I know where to go, but we need to get you there fast.”
So for the next minutes we walked or, more exactly, I walked and she hobbled until we reached a parking lot. A restaurant and a few shops lined the street on one side. The taxi station was empty. I pulled out the magical problem-solver plate for my pocket. Then, my finger hesitated. The hospital was too far. Even with the nifty application, an ambulance would take all of fifteen minutes to get her, then to whisk her away, then to proceed her insurances, then…
I remembered how it had been, so long ago. My eyes alighted on a Ford 150 parked near the marina, high enough to be seen despite the circulation. I tugged at the young hiker’s arm, supporting her and her bag.
As the silence stretched, I found something to say.
“Name’s Kathleen, by the way.”
“M…Maeve.”
- Writer
