One Word Erased Every Pain by Clark Mahoney (room on the broom read aloud txt) 📕

stinging nettles that punctured her skin, sending poisons through their hollow hairs, leaving behind a never-ending tingling and stinging sensation wherever they touched. Although her eyes were fully open, her pupils black widened circles, she couldn’t really see.
Yet, onward she marched, knowing that the only way to reach home, and her dad, was to push herself step after step. He’d often told her, “Be strong whenever you face a challenge. Solve your own problems. Push yourself to be the best that you can be.” This was one of those moments. She was alone and it was up to her to save herself.
After what seemed like an hour of endless battles with nature, she found the ground beneath her feet hard and dry. A few steps, and nothing. She stopped, knelt down, and touched it with her hands. Gone were the rocks. Gone were the roots. Gone were the vines. “Yes!” she shouted in whispered breath. She was on the trail. Finally!
A smile crept across her face, still hurting from the branches that tore their way across her delicate skin. She reached up and touched her cheek with her trembling fingers. Scratches could be felt, running from her ear to her chin, the damage inflicted on her as she pushed her way through the lower tree branches, the bushes, the wilderness.
She could see the light brown of the trail, using the distant starlight and the moon’s reflected sunlight. She breathed a long sigh, and walked slowly down the path. She still had a long way to go, but she was now on solid ground, safer ground, and she felt a bit of happiness enter her heart. Her mind wandered to the happier moments in her life. Being tickled by her dad, asking for it to stop, but then begging for more. Making a fort in the living room with the cushions from the couch and sheets from the linen closet. Dog kisses from her best friend’s dog. Climbing the tree in her front yard and watching cars go by, their drivers unaware that a spy was perched nearby, watching for punch-buggies. Watching a snake do its swivel dance across a dirt road while out hiking with her dad. Recess.
A distant sound erased her smile. “Hoot,” it cried. Followed by another. An owl was sending greetings to others in the area, letting them know that this was their territory, their kingdom, their fiefdom. Or, maybe they were just saying hello to the distant walker, her. Maybe.
She kept walking, careful to stay on the dirt. Off the trail was poison ivy. She couldn’t see it, but she knew that it was there, from the many time she’d ridden this trail in the daytime. “Leaves of three, let them be.” That was the rhyme her father had taught her, hoping to give her a clue as to which plants she could touch and which she should stay away from. As careful as she had been, though, she still got the annoying, itchy bumps on her skin every once in awhile. Several times a year, in fact. She hoped that she hadn’t crawled through any of it while she was in the ravine, or else there would be a price to pay in a few days.
Her foot tripped on a root, and she nearly fell. Anger swelled up inside of her, as her toe began to throb, sending messages to her brain that she should pay more attention to the trail. “Stupid toe,” she yelled as she sat on the ground and held her foot. Tears came again, from sadness at her predicament. “Why?” she cried. “Why did I have to crash?” Of course, she knew that there was no answer to this question, none that would satisfy. Sometimes bad things just happened. How we react to life’s frustrations determines our character, who we really are.
But, sometimes it felt good to cry, to stop for a moment, and to let the pain escape. So, she did. She let it out, there on the trail, sitting in the dirt. She had kept it in for so long, and it had built up within her until a ferocious storm had gathered. Lightning and thunder, heavy winds, trees swaying in the blast, and the landscape forever changed in its torrent. That storm built up within her chest, and it was released, there on the trail.
Once she felt the tension and frustration released, she stood up, whipped her face, and carefully made her way down the trail. She paid more attention to the trail, eyes darting left and right, looking for the shadows that held depressions and roots. Step after painful step, she felt herself getting closer to home. Soon I’ll be safe. Soon.
Then she heard a noise off to the right. Something moved in the bushes, among the trees. She froze. “Dad?” she called, hoping that he was coming up the trail. No reply.
She heard it again, a slow shifting sound, in the grass, or bushes, just a few feet off the trail. What was it? Probably just a squirrel. No, they aren’t active at night. They’re diurnal, active in the daytime. Maybe it was a bird. No, they don’t hunt insects at night. What is it?
Then she heard the sound she never wished to hear, a low yowl, sounding like a freight train coming into a station. She took a step backwards, and stumbled, falling down to the ground and landing hard on her butt. She yelped in pain, then got very quiet, as she realized that the noise in the bushes was the animal she’d been warned about on the sign, the biggest predator of these woods.
A mountain lion had found her, and she was very, very afraid.
 

Part XIII

Shannon and Jose loved Elisa as if she were their own daughter. They swore they’d look for her all night, but they hadn’t found her. Hours and hours of looking, shining the flashlight here and there, into the darkness, past that tree, around that bush, into that creek bed. They looked and looked, walking the trail from one end to the other, then back down again. Then repeat, up the trail, and back down, slowly, carefully. Each time, they’d check in with the others by cell phone, to see if anyone had found Elisa. The answer was always no.
Jeff and Scott searched every trailer and stable in the horse area. Then, they checked them again. Jeff found a ladder and checked on top of each while Scott walked into and around every one of them. No Elisa. No bike. No luck. She was gone.
Clark and Maritza started at the top of the trail and searched farther up, mile after mile, walking, looking, calling, waiting to hear a response, but getting none. It was so frustrating, so disappointing. He thought of the critters that lived in the wild, especially rattlesnakes, who don’t like to be disturbed. Sure, they bite humans only as a last resort, but they do bite humans. And, if you don’t get the antivenin quickly, you could die, especially if you were a little girl. This thought pushed him to keep looking, but eventually weariness and lack of success ate away at him.
Julie and Spiros shook every bush they came across, using a stick to poke and prod everywhere. No Elisa. Where was she? All they could think about was coyotes. Coyotes hunted in pairs, and sometimes in packs. And, they were carnivores. They ate meat, normally small critters, but sometimes they ate fruit and insects when meat wasn’t available, or carrion, or, injured prey. If Elisa was injured, then they might eat her. “Elisa?” they called even louder. They had to find her. Had to.
Krystal and Mark spent the night calling until their voices were hoarse. They went through two sets of batteries, their flashlights growing dim in the darkness. “Elisa?” they called. “Where are you?” They hoped for an answer, hour after hour, but felt their hope growing dim with each moment of silence that greeted their calls.
Back at the house, Elisa’s father waited for the phone call, the phone call that would let him know that his daughter was okay. But, it never came. Weary teams wandered back into his garage, and into the house, downcast and refusing to look him in the eye. They knew that their failure couldn’t be helped. It was the fault of the darkness. If they just had more light, then everything would be okay. He knew this, and by three a.m., was sending teams home, to sleep, and return when the sun reappeared in the morning sky.
“Go home, and we’ll look for her tomorrow,” he’d tell his friends. Each set off in their vehicles until it was only he and his best buddy left, sitting at the table, looking at each other. Just the two of them. Two friends. Two red-eyed, weary, worried friends.
“Remember when she was born, and you laughed when you saw her? She was such a fat little wiggler back then, and loud. So loud. Her cry nearly woke up the entire hospital.”
“I do,” he replied.
“Remember her first steps. You recorded her all the time back then, video camera stuck to your eye, capturing every moment forever. I watched that video so many times.”
“Yes,” he laughed, remembering such good times.
“Do you remember her first word?”
“Yes,” he answered softly. “Da. Me. I was her first word.”
“Remember her first day at school, and that cute little dress, and what she said to you when you kissed her goodbye and told her to be a good little girl?”
He smiled at the memory. “I am NOT a little girl. I am a BIG girl,” she had warned.
“Remember her first bike, that little red three-wheeler, and how much she loved that, until you got that two-wheeler for her? And then she rode it everywhere, up the street, on sidewalks, on the trail…”
Tears came to his eyes, as he thought of her bike, and the trail, and how much he missed her right now. Oh, he missed her so very much. So very much.
He stood up, cleared his eyes of the tears, and said with certainty, “She’s out there. She’s scared. And she needs me. I can’t sit here waiting like this. I am going back out again, and I will find her.”
“No, my friend. WE will find her.” And, off the two of them walked with flashlights in hand, out of the house, down the street, and to the trail.
 

Part XIV

“Don’t run,” she told herself. She wasn’t prey. Mountain lions hunt smaller critters, and smaller critters flee when they are scared. They panic and try to get away, but they don’t. If I run, then I’d be viewed as prey, and mountain lions can jump twenty feet in one bound. One jump. One leap. I’d be caught. “Don’t