Title: Suggestions?

OK.

Welcome to my self-indulgent little experiment. The imagery and metaphor are heavy-handed, and this is obviously coming from a sulky place, but I'm not much of a fiction writer so maybe I can get a little honest criticism from folks who like to read. I kinda wanted to model this after "Hills Like White Elephants," but I'm not sure if it's even a good imitation, and maybe I should start more modestly by mimicking Dr. Seuss before trying to tackle Hemingway. I envision it being longer but would want some direction before spending too long on it. This is a couple hours of work as it is.

Anyways, tear it apart ...

...

Thursday was hot and cloudy, and throughout the morning the threat of a thunderstorm simmered in a sky wandering through alternating shades of grey-white and gunmetal, but never blue. The man's craned neck perspired, his head lolling back over his spine, and twisted imperceptibly from side to side.

"I can deal with clouds," he said, squinting, "as long as it doesn't rain." He stared up for a second longer with no answer before he lowered his shaded eyes from the cottony, featureless sky and onto the fair, sad face of the woman with whom he had walked all this way. "Good enough is just that, you know? Good enough." He grimaced at the words, wishing he hadn't said them.

She was looking not at him but in the direction of the city from which they'd come walking, now miles distant. The air was thick, and when she raised her hand to shade her eyes she felt the moisture displace and flow around her bare forearm, like soup around a spoon. Stretched out in front of her, between the city and them and surrounding their current position on the hilltop, were acres of lush, dense forest, rising and falling with the undulations of the hilly landscape. Through the trees, she was not able to make out the path they had taken, and she only could tell it was the direction from which they had come by the gleaming city at the forest's edge.

The man's grimace had deepened as he watched her, and he now wore the expression of someone standing at the edge of cold water, not wanting to jump in but having little other choice.
"So. Should we get going again?"

She pressed her lips tightly together. That it was not the first time he had gotten them lost made her skin cold, that he was so clearly avoiding a discussion of the matter made it prickle, and that he was asking her to decide whether or not to start out again made it itch. The sun had crested the sky and was beginning its slothful, tortured journey toward the western horizon. It was getting hotter. She thought absently that the sweat on her cheeks might disguise the tears that had started to come.

He stood for another minute, noticing the tears and doing nothing, saying nothing. Then he sat next to her, looking at her face that, unblinking, never turned away from the city. He put his hand out to touch her neck, but paused and rested it instead on the ground between them. He turned to look at the city as well, wondering if he could make it back by himself before dark, and whether she would get there before him.