a story

She rode her bike down to the river at sunset. The balmy air brushed her skin as she stood on the railroad tracks and kicked at the shards of broken glass that lay among the scraps of filthy paper and clumps of dry grass. The rhythmic clatter of truck tires on the bridge deck above echoed against the walls of the buildings below. Across the road, the old iron works shop's wide bay doors lit up in a shower of sparks. As the sky turned the pink of twilight she saw, lying at her feet, a green marble.