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Short Story S: 3 Post: 3 - "This Wild Heart Beat"

     She found it haunting her first in the rhythmic footfalls of the old mare beneath her as they trekked under the fluttering eyes of the stars. 
     Tha-thump, tha-thump, tha-thump..
     It was like an echo with a string tethered to a hook in her chest, tugging and pulling at her, twisting her around in her saddle looking for that familiar sound.
     But it escaped her sight, ghostly in the silence, trailing them, whispering like a gentle breeze each time she turned her back on it to continue forward.
     Tha-thump, tha-thump, tha-thump...
     Then, like shadow spirits, it crept upon her in the night when the need to rest weighed her down until she could not longer resist. It churned the colors of her dreams--shifting muted skies to brilliant shades of blue and sands to honey and wheat--like eyes and hair she could never forget.
     Tha-thump, tha-thump, tha-thump...
     It slowly became a demon on her heels, chasing her everywhere she went, pulling her focus away from the tasks of her travels to drown her in fragmented memories.
     Tha-thump, tha-thump, tha-thump--the beat continued on, soon merging with every breath she took in and out and wrapping itself like a snake around her heart, sinking its teeth in, making her ribcage rattle like a thunderstorm.
     She couldn't shake it--this Wild Heart Beat--the ethereal essence of that woman whose footprints lead in one direction across the desert while her's were off in another. It was like a spell, a consuming maddening enchantment that would not let her go.
     Twice she turned her mare around and paused, resisting the insistent tugging that beckoned her to follow. She knew when it gripped her a third time that would be the last of her will--she would break, and do so willingly.
     Tha-thump, tha-thump, tha-thump...
     Damn that beautiful woman.
     Tha-thump, tha-thump, tha-thump--that was all she could feel now, beneath her feet, in her chest, in the sea of phantom laughter and aching touches--that thumping heart beating wildly, singing to her own. It was pushing her now, turning her in chaotic directions like a blind woman who could only sense the thumping to find her way home.
     She was going to get that blasted woman.
     And then she was going to kiss her senseless until--in the still of the night, after they were spent--she could rest her head on that familiar thumping rhythmic beat and finally be at peace.



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