sidda quayle.

Sidda clutched the stone side of the church. Her fingers scraped at the grain, and her brittle nails cracked. Her thoughts swirled with visions of the whitewashed slats on the house, the curling, browning vines. She licked the seeping blood from her fingertips and cringed. Her hair hung in her eyes. She rubbed them. Red and tired from the night before, her eyelids fell like sinking ships when she collapsed on the church steps. How silly she was; how suspended.

Raindrops slid from her forehead, slid over her eyes and through her fingers.

The trees ahead of her fuzzed and danced in her vision, colored and dizzy. Her fingers scanned and explored her scalp, searching for any bumps or bruises. Sidda felt along the tree trunks towards the park, carefully aligning her steps so to avoid another fall. 

Kaleidoscopic dreamscapes and twisted figures drifted through Sidda's eyes and mind. 

Her dress was dirty. Gravel stained the front, and dirt from the shoes of church-goers left prints on the hem. Sidda dropped to her knees. Crawling towards the play structure, Sidda heard a deep sigh. Pausing, she cooed. 

A pudgy hand gripped a clod of dirt and crumbled it. 

Sidda pulled herself towards the slide, red and glaring. Her lips felt the cool metal. 

A body stirred under the slide.

Sidda was feeling so dizzy that she sank down in the ditch with her legs twisted under her. 

A pudgy hand fell softly near her head. Sidda's head turned slowly. Her motions, syrupy, were slow and deliberate. She peered under the slide.

The old woman's eyes drooped. Her lips trembled, then fell.

Sidda leaned towards her, humming. She felt the woman's wrinkled face, traced the lines gently.

Sidda melted into the dirt, then threw up.