She sat in the damp grass, her shadow elongated and disturbing, stretching across the ground like a dark eager arm. The seat of her jeans was soaked with last nights rain, which clung still to the grass; the trees; the flowers. The sprinkled drops of water shone with the light of the sun, as it beamed down on the earth, like it was smiling, and engulfed her with its warmth.

Yes, the summer's warmth touched everything. It rolled off the tips of the leaves, it snaked between the branches and the foliage of each tree and bush. Even the wind seemed to be made of heat. She marvelled, with the sun's burn so intense, that the lingering raindrops had not yet turned to steam.

She leant her head backward, in a seeming salute to the sky, and allowed herself a deep, satisfying breath. The breeze tunnelled across the open field, whipping around her as if it had made the journey for the sole purpose of caressing her face with its ghostly fingers, and kissing the bare skin of her arms.

It was the perfect place, she had decided, to be alone, but not lonely. For didn't she have the company of the birds? The insects? The trees?

She looked behind her to where the end of the field embraced the gravel pathway, to where her run-down truck was parked, solid and solitary. Its keys were still in the ignition and its peeling red paint appeared the colour of rusting fire beneath the sun's gaze.

She had not come to this place for many years. For it had been many years since she had needed to. This field, this feeling, the ability to fill her lungs with sky: these were her remedy to that which had not plagued her for a long time. But today, old memories had resurfaced, old pain relived in the shards of the photo frame that now lay mangled beneath her bed, and the remains of a letter, words now rippled with tears.

She gazed blankly at her ink smudged fingertips, listening to the secretive whispers of the wind, and the birds that serenaded her from their hiding spots in the heights of the trees – and she wondered just how long she had been sat there.

It was long enough for the sun to swim from its position at the centre of the sky, to now hang low over the horizon, making the clouds sag with heavy golden light.

If she stayed all night, she thought, she could watch as those clouds were wrung out like dishcloths, twisted in the dark until every last amber drop was squeezed from them. Then, she promised herself, she would wait until the morning, when the sun again spilled over the lip of the earth and filled the patient clouds with its light once more.