October 2024: Janet Muirhead Hill

“the eggs weren’t real”

The feeling of panic when she first realized she was lost had long since been replaced by quiet desperation. Sh’d leaned she could survive cold nights. She’d found water enough to survive. But, she was sure if she didn’t find food soon, she would die. Food. It’s all she could think of, all that filled her hazy brain. As she plodded down a grassy hill, she spied a large brown nest with the biggest egg she’d ever seen She rushed to it, thinking of how she’d poke a hole in the end and suck out the contents, which would give her strength to go on. But as she reached for the egg, stumbling forward she fell, and the egg was gone. Vanished. A trick of light. She lay her head on the next that was no longer there and cried for the egg that wasn’t real. 

Hill writes from her rural Montana home which she shares with her husband, two cats, and two ponies. She writes for the joy of writing as she learns about life and herself through the characters in her novels and in the random poetry she occasionally pens. www.janetmuirheadhill.com