A Million Habits

It wasn’t much to look at: just a lot of long brown and green grass giving way to a forest of oaks and elms that formed a boring horizon line, a line she’d stared at a hundred times through bruised and puffy eyes that sat like blue and purple halos over a jaw so sore it was hard to drink coffee because she couldn’t close her mouth. “A million habits” she would tell her kids “are a million times harder to break”; “where would I go?” Their tears were not enough.

This morning the land looked different. She noticed small hills and rolls in the field that rose and fell in a peaceful rhythm and through her old yet surprisingly curious eyes, what appeared to be paths into the forest. When the sun shone on the grass this morning, it was like stringy gold embers from a long burning fire gently rolling and shifting, calling, waiting, calling…

She would walk this land this morning, alone, unbeaten, in a morning light that glowed from sleep and rest unknown to her because it wasn’t one of a million habits. She had learned to protect her most vulnerable spots, in complete silence, only the exhales and the force of the blows making sound but knuckles can be loud, even deafening. “Mom, please, you can come live with us” Samantha begged. A million habits. She noticed her breath now walking this land, noticed the sounds of the birds and the crickets and the grass brushing her pants as she rolled up and down the land, sometimes brushing the tops of the stalks, enjoying the feel, the tickling… “Mom, you have to go, we’ve gone, come with us…” A million habits. Their tears were not enough. Golds and browns and greens…grass under foot, gently surrounding her…waving, tickling, gentle, gently, with care,…a million habits…

Through uncracked, unsplit lips she smiled and stopped in the middle of the field and turned to look back at the house and over the path she made; a new path, not of habit, but of spontaneity…a house of habit, of rote, of exquisite, brutal timing. Those paths she saw, could they have been there before? Could they have been waiting before? A million habits. Her feet sunk softly into the wet ground, momentarily anchoring her, reminding her…stuck…these habits, those habits, my habits, she thought. I could have done something different. She unplugged her feet and went as fast as her old body would take her to the forest. The house shrank behind her in the distance and the forest grew bigger, trees growing as she neared, coming into focus, a path opening to a forest of cover, of refuge, a blanket from the soon to be blistering sun…a million habits.

Describe a landscape as seen by an old woman whose disgusting and detestable old husband has died. Do not mention the husband or death.