A Short Story on the Website of
the Red Dirt Writers Society

Awakening
by Betsy Randolph (Mar 2011)

        She doesn’t know any better. She thinks it is spring. But this is Oklahoma. The weather is tricky; the weather is cruel. She has been awakened by the sun on her body, so she stretches her limbs toward the bright blue sky. The cool breeze tickles her skin as she uncurls her fingers and opens her palms to feel the sunlight. Longing for signs that her children are still there, she searches for their small faces peering up at her. There they are - she sighs. At last, she smiles at them all scattered around her feet.

        But spring hasn’t sprung. The winter is still here. So she resists the temptation to burst with her colorful adornment: a trees’ hibernation yet fulfilled.