ROAD SIGN

by K. Jeffery Petersen

Down at the bottom of the hill by Brian’s house lies the road 
sign. It is face down and run up against the rock. The metal of 
it dented from the impact. The edges of it curve up slightly 
and are wavy. Even from a distance, the distortion is apparent. 
The square wooden pole extends a few feet behind the sign, and 
is sharp and jagged at the end.

There is a long furrow down the hill behind the road sign, a 
deep cut into the earth. It is not clean, but rather a soft yet 
ragged tear. Little rivulets from water runoff trace along the 
edges and down into the furrow.

Beyond the sign and the rock is Brian’s pond. A small, kidney-
shaped body of water. It is four feet at its deepest point. 
There is a boulder jutting out of the pond on the side nearest 
the road sign. It is two feet tall and angles towards the 
shore. Close to the water, the boulder is smooth, but at the 
top it is sharp and square.

Two shoes adorn the area; both high heels with one inch heels. 
One is stabbed into the hillside a few feet away from the 
furrow. The strap is broken, and there is a small divot behind 
the heel. The second is broken in two down on the sharp rocks 
around the pond. Holes poke into the ground behind each shoe 
and trace up the hillside at even intervals.

A number of footprints are across the hill. Many of them from 
large feet: men’s size ten or bigger. They have deep prints, 
pressed hard into the ground, flattening the grass and giving 
an edge of brown dirt. The water runoff has only begun to 
soften the sharp edges. They track up and down many times. Only 
one pair comes down from Brian’s house, those belong to a 
smaller foot: size 8 ½. They go down and back up three times. 
On one of the return trips, they are much deeper and swerve 
around on occasion. The prints are also not even, as if weight 
had been shifted.

The rest of the large prints follow the path of the furrow but 
do not touch it. They circle around the road sign. At the edge 
of the gravel beach, rocks are pushed away in jagged parodies 
of the foot prints.

Two pairs of prints, the farthest away from the furrow and from 
Brian’s house, are parallel with one pair following the other. 
Between them, a faint path of drops of color can be seen, 
slightly darker than the grass it rests upon.

This trail of color strays down  to the beach, where the 
variation can be seen much better against the gray rocks. There 
is a large splotch of it very close to the pond, a rusty tinge. 
On the jutting boulder, there is another splash of that rusty 
color, up across half the flat top, and trailing down the front 
unevenly.