99 words –

“Come on, let’s go…”

Boots once muddied from play now covered in sand. Nights full of treacherous poison and days under the beating sun. The child sleeps without rest, walks along, follows. She yearns for the bed behind them. It was shared, but home. The promise ahead is…cold.

She trudges in boots broken through to her tiny calloused feet and hides as a car passes. “Through the dreamers we hear the hum,” plays from the radio, the air-conditioner blares, to the next gas stop or rest stop.

Not for her though, the