Good afternoon, Arrowheads! Today, I’ve got a short little Flash Fiction piece for y’all that offers another hint as to why I named this blog Authoring Arrowheads! So, without further preamble, here’s Arrowhead!

Arrowhead

When I was younger, my absolute favorite place to explore was my grandparents’ yard. As far back as I can remember, my older cousin, Rider, and I would make forts out of befallen tree limbs and climb the trees that decorated the entire front lawn. Other times, we would simply choose to dig holes in the dirt driveway path.

One day as I was sketching my name into the dry dirt using a twig as my writing instrument, Rider called me over to a hole he’d been digging. After all our days of pretending we’d find buried treasure, my cousin crouched down and dusted off the object he’d found, cradling it in his hands before presenting it to me.

“What kind of rock is that?” I can still picture myself asking, too young to realize the significance of the find.

“It’s not a rock, Dingbat,” Rider replied in his usual brash way, through grinning in the process. “It’s an arrowhead! Native Americans used them to hunt way back when. A lot of people find them up around the mountains near Tennessee, but I’ve never found one around here before!”

Since then, Rider’s had me thinking. I want to find another arrowhead. After all these years I’ve spent sifting through dirt and grime, I’m looking forward to pushing back that last dirt clod, that last obstacle, before reaching out to collect the fruits of my labor. It’ll be rare, and it’ll be beautiful. The thing is, it’s hard for someone to come across such a miracle so easily.

© Copyright 2017, Allyson Kennedy. All rights reserved.