Ten-minute On-the-spot Writing!

I wrote this in ten minutes during our October Uxbridge Writers' Circle meeting (check out our blog: uxbridgewriterscircle.blogspot.ca
The prompt was a bookmark with a picture of a branch with lichen growing on it.

LICHEN

She sat and stared at the grey and yellow fuzzy lichen clutching to the old branch lying on the thick, green grass. It  had missed her by a couple of inches. She'd felt the cold breeze on her face and in her hair as it tumbled down.
    Hadn't she told Angus at least ten times to cut that tree down? If he'd done it twenty years ago she wouldn't have had this near-death experience.
    She turns her body and heaves herself off the wet ground as her hyper-active border collie runs backwards and forwards to the barn. Looking around, she wonder what on earth Angus has been doing. Nothing, obviously.
    The fences are missing rails and, as she touches one of the posts, it wobbles precariously, signifying its separation from its anchor in the ground. The vines obliterate the fence in some areas, making it look as if there are escape routes for the horses.
    Where are the horses? She can't see them anywhere. She fights with the sliding door, stuck on its rusty wheels, as she peers into the dark, damp  gloom inside the barn. No sign of life. No smell of wood-shavings, hay, grain or cat food. Her dog wags his tail and turns towards the house, as if encouraging her to leave. She mumbles that she really must have a word with Angus. Things have gone to rack and ruin. 
    On the verge of a panic attack, she takes off her boots and coat, climbs the stairs and a strange looking container sitting on her mantle-piece catches her eye. The urn has a simple inscription on it. She gasps as she reads her husband's name and that he'd died fifteen years earlier.

Copyright Vicky Earle 2018