Too Many Words

Today happened to be a day when two of the Flash Fiction writing challenges I am doing coincided. One, the Writer's Digest, does not limit the amount of words used. The other, Indies Unlimited, limits your writing to 250 words.

I saw the photo prompt on Indies and got so excited when I started writing. I forgot that it could only be 250 words. I wrote a whopping 721 words. When I went to post it, that's when I realized my blunder.

Now came the challenge, removing 471 words without changing the essence of my story. I did it. I think. I'll let you decide. Thanks to K. S. Brooks for the photo prompt below.

Here are the 250 words that made it.

Joey lost Bubba on our tractor ride yesterday. He cried all night. I had to find Bubba.

I left the house early. I found Bubba two miles into the corn rows. Bubba stared at me with its one eye. Its one ear flapped with the cold breeze. I looked forward to the happy reunion and a nap.

Then it came, a winter hurricane like none I’d ever seen. I couldn’t see.

My snot froze before it reached my mouth. My fingers and toes were numb. At least the snow wasn’t deep.

There was no sun to guide me, just dense clouds of ice, snow and fog. It formed a translucent window inches from my eyes.

I walked in a single direction. Eventually I’d hit something, unless I went west. West went on forever.

Hunched down in my coat collar, I trudged. Every few feet I’d glance up.

Nothing.

I trudged for at least five hundred miles before I saw something.

It was the trees that lined the path leading to our back door. Their leafless branches, silhouetted by the damp, gray air, danced in the wind. Were they waving to me or, laughing?

I smiled. My lips cracked. I was sorry for the fuss I made about planting them. Bridgette had good reasons, but at the time, all I could think of was that they were in the way.

But today, on what could have been the last day of my life, I thanked Bridgette and her dam trees.