Hag Hideaway

For many years Hag lived behind fences, shrubs and trees. She preferred dark shade and rust to light and flowers. Hag though, recently within the last two years had most of the trees and shrubs cut or removed. It exposed an eclectic yard of abandoned cars and structures. Hag had let the light in which started her undoing.

Now exposed, Hag's appearance was noticeable. Bony to the extreme with missing teeth and those left, precariously exposed beneath the receding gum line. Hag's dress is plain and simple as most hags are and with little note other than a cotton print cloth in a handmade fashion. Hags skin hangs  from her bony frame as if once it was saturated with muscle but now that that has left, only the crepe paper crinkle of skin is there to drape her frame. It is lined with veins and spotted with age. Hag's hair hangs around her shoulders, gray, dead and lifeless. No bounce, or highlights, like seaweed on a knot of driftwood drying in the sun.

Sometimes there have been scenes with, what I assume, are relatives of one sort or another. People who called to her to come out, to open her wood gate and let them in. Pleas even but they have stopped now for some time and I haven't seen the daughter of Hag for quite a while. A bit more kept than Hag, but not by much. In fact, at first, it was hard to tell who of the two was Hag.

Now there is a quietness to the place between the Western Bunker and the house of Village Idiot. A deep quiet that lets no sound in or out. The webs of spiders, spun day after day, collect here and there to begin the cycle of darkness for Hag. She has, as far as I know, survived now on a can of flea spray and six eggs. Not being sure how long a hag can survive on that, I would say for quite some time it appears.

Tonight the Great Horned Owl with the camera for a brain will fly high overhead and report what is sees. Great Horned Owl can see many things we cannot. And if life at Hag Hideaway is still there, Great Horned Owl will see and know.