The Moribund Moose

Ruth Ostrowski’s midlife crisis hadn’t arrived in the normally prescribed manner. Rather, it snuck up on her incrementally, one negligible tribulation after another; it bushwhacked her with night sweats, sent her caterwauling toward menopause and the outer rim of her twilight years. Now, compounding her inner blight, the first frost, like a silver-haired, uninvited guest, blanketed the earth.