[ FF ] - 250 Words ; 2 months Reddit Gold prize

Heather spent time in our courtyard, smoking our cigarette butts and basking in our shade. She wore the same pair of denim shorts and they strangled her thighs like a python. 
 
 Greg and I sat on the balcony passing a joint with a bobby pin and making a game of tossing popcorn kernels into the dumpster. Heather was in the yard with a shovel. We watched her, straining to see her through a curtain of smoke. 
 
 “ What is she doing? ” Greg overturned the popcorn bag. We watched the kernels scatter on the pavement, the wisps of what popped took flight in the breeze. 
 
 “ I don ’ t fucking know. ” 
 
 She had appeared in June, ignited a flurry of gossip amongst the stay at home moms in the complex who took offense to the way her tits strained against of the sides of her bikini top. A crack head. Or a whore. Eventually one of them got close enough to read the tattoo that stretched across her back like a scar. HEATHER it said, so that ’ s what we called her. 
 
 By September she was gone. Greg too. One morning I woke up to find the house empty of his things. It gaped at me like a toothless mouth. I went into the courtyard to escape it. But it wasn ’ t like I loved him. 
 I started to dig, and for a while there was nothing. 
 
 Then, the sound of metal on metal, and the unearthing of a thunder-black pistol. 
 
 A moment of contemplation. 
 
 Silence. 
 
 Light. 
 

