Reductions (Flash! Friday)

Kolmanskop CC photo by Damian du Toit (via Flash! Friday)

I am ground to grains by you; miniscule proportions.  A steady slow creation.  Loss begins at my toe; the ochre nail.  Barely noticeable at first, at least by you.  A careless word and gone.  I tell myself I do not miss it.  My reduction, one digit alone.  I tell myself.

The missing foot poses new problems.  I set myself to hobble, resolved.  You step upon the scattered silica granules in my wake with your soles.  I hear the grate on wooden floorboards, the grind and crunch.  You don’t – or so it seems.  You say to stay, safe with you.  I do.  I wonder why. 

Times passing anchors me to the floor.  My remnants splay about me; pass through the gaps in boarding, make good their escape.  I cannot hope to follow, unless by gradual division, which continues apace.  An inexorable shrinking.

Perhaps if you are patient, some day you will wake surrounded by the pieces of me you have made.

(160 words)

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The word prompt this week was "patience".