Star Swallowed, by Olivia Wolford

Star Gazing in Texas, by Ida O’Keefe (USA) 1938

Star Swallowed

Her white dress was the only detail that stayed consistent in the retellings, how it shone in the dazzle that poured down. Most said her dog Cricket was taken up with her, though others claimed he still frisked the edges of their fields, pissing off barn cats. Either way it was agreed he was an inky, yippy little thing, one they preferred out of sight. Come to think of it, they preferred her out of sight too; she’d been a hazy child, more curtain of water than girl. Her brothers wouldn’t speak for seven months after, and they weren’t boys of many words to begin with. “She was swallowed,” one had confided, “by stars.” Truth was, they’d both been bowled clean over by the dazzle, witnesses only to the insides of their eyelids. It was said the cows minded their business while she was taken up. The horses, of course, watched the whole thing. They saw her bathed in moonbeam certainty, head upturned, swimming with clean strokes to a place beyond all light. 

Olivia Wolford

Olivia Wolford was born on a hot summer day in Dallas County, Texas. She is an environmental anthropologist, teacher, and writer currently living in the D.C metro area.