Along with friends, I am participating in a writing challenge over at Frankie’s Wining Room. Each piece is intended to stand alone, but if you (like me) enjoy seeing the chronological progression of things in writing, I recommend you read them in order. This is the first piece of flash fiction for Week 3. Week 1, Excerpt 1, is located in Illness, Achievements, and Challenges. Enjoy!

Photo owned and copyrighted by Katie Johnson. Photo credit: https://katierenejohnson.com/

There were too many people up here. Someone shoved into her shoulder, throwing her off-balance. Someone else invaded her personal bubble wearing the metallic scent of hard work that always reached out to grip her throat. Next came the coughing, the stares, the prickles up her spine from the force of too many eyes turned in her direction. She was used to smelling metal—just not on people. Having recently finished giving a seminar on ilmenite, obsidian, and chalcopyrite, she was headed to the airport to return to the field—this time to the mountains of Colorado for some rare manganese: Rhodochrosite.

She didn’t see how anyone could live in a city without going insane. Too many bodies pressed into not enough space, too many buildings with too few streets or parking spaces to accommodate the number of cars navigating between them. Even here on the sixty-second floor she could see the exhaust, its amethyst plumes seeping through windows and carried in on people’s bodies, hair, and clothing. Viscous and sticky, its odor lingered; mingling with synthetic fabrics and vinyl upholstery.

Several from her conference clustered around a window looking out over the cityscape. Marble, steel, glass, chrome; everything was too polished. Too refined. Too polluted. The window in front of her was polluted. People with cameras, smartphones, and other recording devices silhouetted in the sunlight; their pale, orange-and-blue auras shifting slightly with every movement.

There. A space had cleared that should allow for an unhindered look. She moved to the window and placed her hand against the pane. Suddenly tasting the color yellow, she raised her phone, tapped the screen a few times, and backed away.

Never again. The window might stay there long after she passed away, but this was the last time she would be looking through it. She’d stood atop mountains as tall or taller than this skyscraper and had no problem with the altitude, but the spinning, tilting nature of this building was more than she could handle. She was done.

She ignored the elevator, opting for the stairs. Winding down countless flights brought an increase in freedom with every footfall. Each step brought her closer to the outdoors, to the sunlight, to a means of escape from this overwhelming kaleidoscope of urban monotony. The call of wild places beckoned her once again, even if she was about to give up on stairs and ride down the remaining floors in a little metal box.

Now it’s your turn. Leave a comment or send me a message to give feedback. Check out the writing challenge for yourself if you are curious to see how different individuals have approached the same material, or if you would also like to participate.

Until the next time…