Work in Progress

This is just more of a basic sketch of an idea than an actual story. It's also very rough. as with most of my stuff, I haven't really proofed it yet. I think I will end up exploring this some more, and spend some actual time on it. It's sufficiently vague at the end to not tip you off where I want to go with it. oh well. You'll have to just deal with it :)


The Final Run.

“It’s fucking raining again.” Said Robby to no one in particular. It was just him, the radio, and his thoughts on this trip. He was driving back down from a drop up north. A rainy October weekend, he hated these fall trips. He felt that he was beyond them. He should be able to spend his weekends at home. As he was rounding a corner, his tire blew. His car started to fishtail. He over compensated, and spun out, planting his car, and himself firmly in the small ditch on the west side of the road. “Goddamnit!!” he screamed. He just wanted to get home. He got out of the car to survey the damage. We walked around the car a few times, checking every corner, and his 3 un-burst tires. The rain was coming down in a steady mist. Not heavy by any means, but definitely constant. He popped his trunk to get out the spare and the jack. After fighting with the lug nuts for a few minutes, he was able to get the tire changed. He hopped back in, and started south. After a few miles, his spare tire started making noises, and then to shake. Within a mile, the entire car was shaking uncontrollably. He could see a small town just ahead. A tiny wooden sign said “Croftville”. He spotted an ancient looking gas station. “This place was probably around before WWII” he thought to himself. He pulled in. Written what looked like at least 3 decades prior on the door were the hours.
Mon-Fri 10-3pm
Sat. noon-3pm.
Sunday Closed

Across the street was a tiny gift shop. It looked equally old, and fairly disused. He walked across the 2 way highway to the shop. Inside was an ancient looking woman, probably someone’s great, great grandmother. “Hello” she barely managed to get out. “We don’t get too many visitors here in our town” she slowly creaked. “What can I do you for?”
Robby started in on his situation. As he finished, he couldn’t help but end with “and now I’m stuck in bumfuck nowhere!” She gasped. “We don’t appreciate that sort of language here” said the old woman. Abraham, our mechanic is off fishing for the rest of the weekend, but should be back Monday” the woman stated. “I can’t wait that long” Robby said, “Do you have a phone? I can’t seem to get cell service up here”. Nope, no phone here, one over at the gas station, but like I said, Abraham is gone.”
“Don’t you have one anywhere else in town?” He asked.
“Nope. Most of our residents are seasonal. You can go try and see if anyone is around this weekend, but I would assume most aren’t. Only people that live here are myself, Abraham, my sister Dorothy, and the Olsen’s. None of us ever got telephones. Our families were here before the phone lines came. They ran them along the highway there, but not up to our houses”. Robby sighed. He figured he’d try and hitch a ride down to the next real town.

“I’m never going to make another northern run.” He said to himself. He didn’t know how right he was.

Article 7

Evidence File: Article 7.
Description: Suicide note found on suspect.

I don’t have much time. Something is scratching at my door. I just hope what I write here is found, and passed on. Don’t drink water. There’s something in it. Trust me. You have to trust me. They came in the night. Took my wife. I didn’t even notice. I was drugged I think. Please God, help me. Whatever’s out there is big. I can hear it breathing. I’m scared. Please tell my children I love them. I think they’re coming for me. The door is starting to crack. I pushed the dresser and the chairs and piled everything I could in front of our door. I’m going to jump from the balcony. That’s the only way. If you find this, please tell everyone. I didn’t want to jump, but whatever is on the other side of the door is much worse. At least I sense it will be. Remember, don’t drink the water, and tell my kids I love them.

Knife Hollow

It was 10pm, way past her bedtime. Andrea snuck out of her house, and walked down the gravel road the half mile to Jason’s. She slinked around back to where his bedroom was, and peeked in. She knew he was still awake, because she could see the light of his flashlight hovering there over his bed, underneath the sheet. He was reading something. “Probably nothing interesting” she thought. Jason had a tendency to read books past his reading level. Probably something for junior high kids, or maybe even high-schoolers she thought. She tapped their secret knock on his window. 1 loud, 2 quiet, 1 loud, 2 quick and quiet. The sheets flew off of a bespectacled, mop headed boy of eleven. He scampered over to the window.
“Andrea! What are you doing here?!?” exclaimed Jason in an exasperated whisper.
“I want to show you something” she said in a normal talking voice.
“SHHH!! My parents will hear! I don’t think they’ve gone to bed yet”.
Andrea stared at him with her “are you serious?” look.
“What do you want to show me?” he asked. “It’s late. We have church in the morning.” Knowing that Andrea’s adventures usually got the two of them in trouble, or at the very least extremely dirty, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to get involved this time. They both sang in their tiny church’s choir, and had to be there by 8:30, so he thought that might be a good deterrent. He knew deep down though it would do nothing to stop her.
“Just get some shoes on and come out here. It’s a surprise.”

He knew then he wouldn’t be able to get any sleep until he did just as she said. Last month, she’d sat outside his window all night trying to get him to come out and watch for UFO’s with her. Turned out she had had checked a book out from the library about aliens the week prior, and the book had mentioned crop circles. She was sure that they would land in her family’s corn field. He never relented, and because of that, had never gotten any sleep that night. She finally gave in as the sun was rising, which coincidently was about 5 minutes before his Mom would come in to wake him up to do chores. He found that it was much easier to just humor Andrea’s whims, and usually she’d let him go home and at least get a few hours sleep.

He quickly threw on some old sneakers from his closet, and as quietly as he could, slid the screen off his window. He shimmied and somersaulted out of his window to land on his feet. It was a move that he had perfected over the years thanks to the many evening excursions Andrea had needed an accomplice for.
“What are we doing tonight?” He sighed.
“Just come with me, you’ll see”.
She led the way back down his driveway, and out onto the gravel road. Even though there was never any traffic on it this late at night, they decided to walk in the drainage ditch off the side of the road, so if they saw headlights, they could duck into the woods quickly. If someone spotted them, they were sure to get into trouble. They walked the half mile back to her place, and then past her driveway, and stopped about 50 yards down the road.
“Where are we going?” Jason asked.
“You’ll see. It’s going to be so worth it. Hold on a sec though, I want to grab some stuff from my place.”
She ran quietly back to her driveway, and up it towards the barn, and disappeared around the back of it. Five minutes later she was back, carrying a small brown backpack.
“What’s in there?” Jason asked, knowing the chances of getting a straight answer were about the same as his parents being happy that he was sneaking around in the middle of the night.
“You’ll see. Don’t worry so much Jason, I’ve got us covered.”
“Can we try to not die tonight though? Because of you, I can’t even go on the bridge over Knife Creek without closing my eyes.” Jason was thinking back to their midnight excursion from last week. As much as he liked Andrea, he really wished that he had a friend that didn’t enjoy doing the most dangerous things she could think of.
“Don’t be silly, we haven’t died yet!” she exclaimed.
“Key word is yet.” He sighed.

She grabbed him by the wrist, and started dragging him along again. The followed the road to the end of the corn field, and cut across the tracks left by the tractors and trucks, and headed towards Pastor’s field. Pastor’s field was a small field where once a year, the Pastor from the church would preach a sermon in July. It actually belonged to the Petersen’s, and separated part of their corn fields from Andrea’s family’s, but the church had been preaching the sermon there for as far back as anyone could remember. It was only about an acre in size, and had a couple apple trees towards the middle and to the east, and a steep hill on the opposite side from which they came. The other two sides were corn fields. They came up to the edge of the field.
“Shhhh.” said Andrea.
Jason nodded, starting to wonder what they were doing. Pastor’s Field was creepy at night. The 2 gnarled apple trees in the field looked like something out of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Jason didn’t believe in magic, or aliens, or anything like that, but was still leery of trees that desperately looked like they wanted to eat children. They walked out into the middle of the field, with just a sliver of the Moon and the stars providing light. They walked up the little incline towards the end of the field that looked down onto a small meadow that lay down the hill in Knife Hollow. Andrea grabbed Jason by the hand.
“Close your eyes.”
“I don’t want to” said Jason. This couldn’t be good. Nothing like this could ever be good with Andrea.
“Fine then, I’ll blindfold you.” She pulled a bandana out of her backpack and proceeded to wrap it loosely over his glasses and eyes.
“Don’t worry, I’ll hold your hand” she said.
Jason sighed as he was led towards the steep side of the field. He felt like he knew what a cow felt like now as it was led to slaughter. His heart started pounding, and he thought of a billion things that could kill him out here. He even started worrying about UFOs. But just as he was started thinking about the time he watched “Alien” with his dad, Andrea stopped and said “We’re here. Don’t take off your blindfold yet. I need to do something.”
He heard the sound of the backpack being unzipped, and Andrea rifling around in it. 30 seconds went by, and he felt her hand again grabbing for his.
“Ok she said. I’m going to sit you down, and then take the blindfold off”
Jason started pondering what she was going to make him sit on. An ant hill? A beehive? Bear trap? The side of a bridge, again? But when he sat down, he felt a slight reassurance that he was sitting on something soft. Something that felt like a quilt. Andrea reached behind him, and took the blindfold off. He looked at her.
“What are we doing out here?” he asked. “We could have sat around in my backyard.”
“Shhh.” She said. “Look down there. Down to the meadow. This is what I wanted to show you.”
Jason looked around, and noticed they were right at the edge of the hill that led down to Knife Hollow and the meadow. And then he saw what she had dragged him all the way out here for. Down below the meadow was entirely lit up by fireflies. More fireflies than he had ever seen, or could have imagined. Tiny lights blinked on and off, sometimes in unison, and illuminated every blade of grass and every flower down there. They could see everything, almost as if it were day time.
“Wow. That’s…beautiful” he exclaimed in a hushed tone.
“I know.” She said. “You’re the only one I could think to show this to. I knew you’d like it.”
Jason could think of nothing to say except “Thank you.”
Andrea smiled, and turned her head back towards the meadow.

Just another night.

The bar was a smoky, decrepit dive, nestled in the middle of a working class neighborhood. To the north were the train yards, to the west the river. The bulk of the dingy city lay to the east, and just south of this neighborhood bar, were a series of dilapidated, rusting hulks; the former iron works and a series of boarded up factories.
She sat in a booth near the back by herself. The walls were wood paneled, and oozed the smells of the past; Sweat, smoke, whiskey, the yeast and grain of the beer, and the smell of the quiet, sedated desperation of souls attempting to escape this dying town. Layers of smoky tar had settled over the light fixtures eliminating all but a dim, slightly grayish yellow light to escape from them. The booth had once been a sparkly red vinyl with specks of glitter in it, the type often seen at diners and roller rinks years ago. Now it was faded and worn, but occasionally when the chairs were cleared out to dance, and the disco ball was turned on, you could still catch minute glimpses of its former glory. The booth was much like the patrons of this establishment; once they had been bright, shiny, new, firm in places, supple in others 30 years ago, but were now worn, faded, sagging and nearly forgotten.

It was Saturday night; karaoke night. The place was packed and busy, full of people trying to forget the past week or their past in general. Names were called, men, women, mixed groups, and couples all came and went. Singing the songs of their childhood, songs for their spouses and significant others, or songs to just dance and not have to think. Finally, her name was called.
“Sarah is up next, Sarah, to the front”.
She got up from her booth, alone in a sea of strangers and headed to the front. Not a very tall woman, or very big, she tried to push her way through people.
“Is Sarah here?”
She raised her hand and waved. The DJ saw her, and continued to hold the microphone out for her. She finally made it through the last of the people crowded around the booths and the small stage to the side of the bar, and climbed up. The music started.
“It seems like yesterday, but it was long ago…”
Sarah started in to the song. Her quiet, unsure voice straining to be heard over the music and the din and clatter of the bar. As she came to the chorus she gained her confidence, and found strength in the words.
“Against the wind. We were running against the wind. We were young and strong, we were running against the wind.”
The patrons went on with their business. A few glanced up to see if they knew who was singing, but turned away when they saw they didn't. Yet she continued on. Singing only for herself. Growing more and more sure of the words she was singing. A lonely girl, barely a woman, singing her heart out in a dive bar, to a song that was older than she was. Baring her soul to no one in particular. No one cared.
As she finished, the DJ had a tear in his eye.
“That was the most beautiful version of that song I’ve ever heard.”
She smiled with a slightly crooked smile, looked down quickly and said thanks, and vanished into the crowd. No one else even realized the song was over.
“Next up is Jerry. Jerry, are you out there?”

No Personal Politics

She awoke to a sharp ringing in her ears. As she slowly opened her eyes she very groggily noticed everything seemed very hazy and gray. Usually her bedroom was sunny in the morning when she woke up. She reached over to the night stand for her glasses, but there was no nightstand to her left like usual. She realized with every passing second, that she had a screaming headache. She tried to sit up, but it felt like someone was sitting on her stomach. She wiped what she thought was sleep from her eyes, but it was very gritty. As she looked around as best she could without her glasses, she realized it was not a person that was sitting on her, but a chunk of ceiling. She went to lift it off. It was a medium size piece of plaster. The fact that a piece of ceiling had just been resting on her didn’t register, nor did the fact that she had been laying on a cement floor, not on a bed. She started crawling around the floor, trying to find her glasses. She found them about four feet from where she had been laying, next to a pile of broken glass. She cleaned the lenses off with her shirt, and put them back on. She sat there, and realized she was at work. Except that it wasn’t. Part of the front counter was gone. The bakery case was only a piece of twisted metal. The tables and chairs, what was left of them were at either side of the dining area. The espresso machines where scattered. One was embedded into the wall behind her; the other was lying over by the coolers. Then she noticed the bodies. Her coworker Deliah was laying on the ground, impaled near the bathroom doors with a piece of the bakery case sticking out of her back. The Tuesday morning elderly ladies church group was not near the front window where she remembered them sitting. Half the wall and the windows either. She saw a leg sitting just outside the store, on the sidewalk. She had no idea where the rest of the person that should be attached to the leg was.

She stood there, in shock, still unable to grasp what she was looking at. It was more like a scene she saw on the news; something that happened to other people, in other countries. Not in the heartland of America at a coffee shop. A man came running in and shouted something at her. She couldn’t hear what he was saying. He shouted something but it just came out garbled. Her head was pounding, and her ears where still ringing. He carefully made his way to her, picking his way through debris. And picked her up, and proceeded to carry her back out of the store, the way he came in. As he was carrying her, she noticed she had a piece of one of the chair legs sticking out of her thigh. The man took her across the street, and placed her down on the curb. He placed a sweatshirt around her, and appeared to ask her a question. She stared at him blankly still unable to hear. Just then 3 squad cars came screaming up, followed almost immediately by two fire trucks. She collapsed.

She awoke again. She was in the back of an ambulance. She could hear sirens. The paramedic sitting next to her smiled, and grabbed her hand. She started to sob.

Vacation.

“There’s nothing better than being at the lake” thought the Man as he pulled up to the cabin. Inside the Friend, the Wife, and the Brothers were already frying up the first day’s catch of crappies. He could see them from the window; the smell of the fish and the breadcrumbs frying in the hot oil was spilling out of the screened in window, and drifting around the yard. He grabbed his backpack out of the back of the truck, and hauled it into the cabin. The slightly sweet smell of the pines and the cool night air of the North Woods caught in his nose and lungs as he took a deep breath. It was definitely good to be here.

He walked in, gave a hug to the Friend and his Wife, and shook the Brothers’ hands. Before he could even put his backpack down, he was handed a plate of crappie and mashed potatoes and an ice cold can of Coors Light. He wasn’t especially fond of Coors, but it didn’t matter up here. With the company and hospitality, all beer tasted the same here, delicious. Dropped his bag, and sat down at the 1960’s metal and laminate table. He was pretty sure he had this same table when he was growing up, and it brought up fond memories of sitting around that rusty legged table eating dinner with his family. The Man, the Friend, The Wife, and the Brothers sat around, eating, drinking and joking around. It wasn’t every day they got to do this anymore. Everyone had moved away, went their separate ways to start their lives. It was harder and harder to stay in touch anymore. Every one of these moments was cherished as if it were to be their last together. After a few hours of catching up, playing cards, and just generally shooting the breeze, everyone headed to bed. There was fishing to do in the morning.

6AM came early. The Man, the Friend, and the Brothers stumbled around, trying to pull pants and shirts on. Thanks to the thoughtfulness of the Wife, the coffee pot was set to auto brew, and kicked on at 5:55am. The youngest Brother poured the contents of the pot into an ancient, dented and faded Thermos. The 4 men loaded all their gear into the equally ancient Lund fourteen footer hitched to the Man’s truck, and headed down the mile to the boat landing. They got the boat into the water, parked the truck, and were on the water by 6:20. Already the sun was trying hard itself to wake up, and start it’s slow rise above the pines. The water was like glass, and there was thin blanket of fog that lay over the entire lake. The men started off across the lake, to a point off one of the many islands they knew should offer up a bounty of fish.

5 hours later, the men were back on shore, loading the boat back on the trailer, to head back for lunch. They had their limit of crappie for the day, and were in need of some much needed sustenance. They drove back to the cabin. The Wife has grilling up some venison burgers and the Brothers’ girlfriends had shown up. The four men and 3 women ate their lunch, and chased it with cold beer. The men decided that they would clean their fish, and the women were going to head out on the lake for Bass fishing.

With the fish cleaned and placed in the freezer, the men each found a couch or chair, and dozed off. The Man couldn’t help to think before he fell asleep in a recliner, how great it was to be back up here. A soft breeze thick with the scent of pines blew in through the open windows, with only the sound of the wind through the needles, and a distant motor from a boat out on the lake. The Man was content.

Dinner

The glass bus shelter shattered behind Reynolds just as he was ducking into Chen’s Spaghetti and Eggroll Emporium to avoid the torrential downpour that had started a minute prior. The boom came a split second later, causing Reynolds to dive for the ground right in the doorway. Another boom, and the glass in the door and front window disintegrated and cascaded down just like the rain that was drenching Tomasi street. This time Reynolds had seen where the booms were coming from. A black Lincoln was creeping down the street, a shotgun barrel sticking out of the rear driver side window. A flash and another boom followed by the sidewalk and bricks in front of him exploding and spraying shards of rock, dust, and lead into his right arm and forehead.

With blood now visible from Reynolds head, the Lincoln driver slammed the pedal down, fishtailing the giant black beast down Tomasi, and around the corner of 26th. Reynolds picked himself up and walked into Chen’s.
“Everyone alright Johnny?” he asked.
The proprietor of Chen’s, Johnny Ng, a mid 40’s, rotund, balding, and usually jovial mountain of a man, shook his head grimly in the affirmative. “Reynolds, that’s going to cost you”.
“What makes you think that was my fault? How do you know someone wasn’t just pissed at you because you don’t make cream cheese wontons anymore?”
Reynolds tried to slip a smile in with his statement, but every time he moved any muscle in his face, it seemed that more blood would start to drip down his face. Johnny handed him some brown paper napkins.
“Don’t you have a first aid kit Johnny?” stated Reynolds.
“Not for people that get my restaurant shot up.” Said Johnny dryly. “The cops will be here soon, you better get going unless you want to spend the night answering questions.”
“Good idea Chen. Can I get an order of shrimp eggrolls and a side of marinara to go?”
“GET THE FUCK OUT REYNOLDS, BEFORE I KILL YOU MYSELF!”
“Fine, I’m going. Thanks for the napkins Johnny”
“Thanks for the mess Reynolds.”

Reynolds walked back out into the rain, holding a wad of napkins up to his forehead. Within seconds, the wad turned into a brown, pulpy lump of blood and rainwater, with what seemed like very little paper left.
“Fuck” declared Reynolds. “I’m going to have to find Lucinda again. She ought to be able to stitch this up”. Sirens were blaring from a few streets away. “And I need to stop talking to myself, people are going to think I’m nuts.” Reynolds ducked down the alley that connected Tomasi to Evergreen, where he had parked his car. It was going to be a long night.

AM/PM

I pulled off the road at 2:13am. I’m not sure why I remember the exact time, but it’s something that has always stuck with me over the years. I was in the middle of Nebraska somewhere, on some state or county 2 lane, making a run south to Amarillo. Back then, I tried to stay off the interstates. I always found trouble there. Or it found me. I was never quite sure. There’s less to worry about on those back roads anyway. Sure, it’s less convenient, sometimes a lot slower, but I saw more of America that way. Hell that was the main reason I took the job. And I wasn’t afraid to drive all night. You’d be amazed at how many people won’t drive overnight.

Anyway, like I said, it was 2:13am. Had to be late September, early October. Days were still warm. Nights were starting to get a little chilly, but not into frost season yet. Moon was full, and probably the brightest I’ve ever seen. Got out to stretch, took a walk around the van. I took in the sounds of prairie at night; the wind rustling the long, dry grass, a cricket chirping. The road was deserted. I hadn’t seen anyone in at least an hour. No houses out there either. I hadn’t seen anything really in quite a while. It was peaceful. Probably the most peaceful I’d ever felt. I climbed up onto the hood of the van, and spread out, resting up against the windshield. Stared into the nothingness of a sky filled with stars, it stared back. I came to a realization of how insignificant each and every one of us truly is. How can we be so self-important, when the universe could really give a shit whether we existed at all? I was as important to the universe, as one single piece of sand in the Sahara was to me. Not important, or meaningful at all. Something I wasn’t even aware of. And I was content. Not with that fact itself, but something about that comforted me. Right down to my core. I hopped off the van. Went over to the side of the road and took a piss. As beautiful as it was there, I had to get a move on it. I had to be to Amarillo by 3pm. Jumped back into the van, turned on Coast to Coast AM and did my best to get the hell out Nebraska.

Car Trouble

“NUTS!!” Bill shouted. The engine had sputtered out again. Trying to find the correct parts for a rusty 1972 Oldsmobile Ninety Eight was damn near impossible before The Blast, and now three years later, it would take an act of God. Only 6 working spark plugs, a so-so fuel pump, and a carburetor that loves to stick gave him headaches on a daily basis. Most of the cars that people were able to get running after The Blast were already considered classics, or in most cases, clunkers. And the majority of them were commandeered, or stolen within the first six months afterwards.

Bill was now stranded on the middle of State Highway 71, about halfway between Outpost Itasca and the fortified town of Park Rapids. “Not good” he thought to himself. There had been a rash of incidents between Bemidji and Park Rapids in the last week. People had gone missing. Civilians, Rangers, rescue crews sent out when the civies or Rangers didn’t report in on time. 22 people in all were now missing in just 3 weeks. There had been reports of fires burning out near what was left of one of the old vacation resorts, and one Ranger had reported in that he heard screams just before dusk when he was running late on a run to Outpost Itasca. After that, rumors spread quickly throughout the Forts and Outposts that the soulless ones had returned. There was no proof of this however. The soulless ones would have placed the their victims upon pikes, stomachs split open, entrails dangling, placed closer and closer to the encampments, outposts, and forts they planned on raiding. They were sadistic, but they knew also that seeing those horrors would cause many to flee, and leave their targets lightly defended, if not abandoned completely. Nothing of the sort had happened. Yet.

As Bill popped the hood, he heard rustling coming from the woods to the east. He slowly pulled his SKS around, raised it, and took aim at where the noise was coming from. Beads of sweat started to appear on his forehead. The tree tops swayed, but down on the road, barely any breeze blew at all. The tall grass and brush at the edge of the woods suddenly started churning. Bill started to apply pressure to the trigger, ready for whatever came out of the woods. Sweat started to drip in Bill’s eyes. He remained steadfast, never wavering. Suddenly, and without pause, two young children came bursting through the woods, at a full run. They were mouthing something, but no sounds came from their lips. They were running straight for Bill, fear in their eyes. Just then, a shot rang out from behind Bill. His forehead exploded as the 5.56 round tore through it, leaving Bill to collapse into a heap on the side of the road.

The Children bolted past Bill, and ran into the arms of the shooter, a dirty, disheveled, wild eyed teen named by his birth parents as Justin. Justin grabbed the two children, and hugged them. Patting them both on the heads, he motioned for them to get into the car, and he swiftly got to work on getting it started. Within 10 minutes, the Olds was sputtering again, and with Justin behind the wheel, turned northward back towards the direction Bill had come from, with Bill’s lifeless body in the trunk.

Reboot: Summer Air.

Going to start posting again. Starting this blog all over. mainly going to use it as an outlet for all the ideas I get stuck in my head when it comes to writing. First story up. I have a loose idea to turn this first one into a series of super short vignettes. We'll see.





Summer Air.
The gravel spit up from the tires as she sped away, pelting him with rocks, and leaving a cloud of dirt to turn his tears to tiny splotches of mud on his face. She was gone for good this time. She wanted a life more exciting than what he could give her. More than what he wanted. He turned back to the old farmhouse, and walked up the hill.

Four hours later, all of her remaining things lay in the 55 gallon drum behind the barn, ready to be burned. But he couldn’t bring himself to start the fire. The quilt she had been given by his grandmother, the framed pictures of the two of them at the Corn Palace and Wall Drug, the jacket he had bought her in Thunder Bay. Clothing, photos, her box of trinkets acquired from auctions, and trips they had taken together. A billion memories and smells and feelings all now resided in a rusted out burn barrel, which he now stood next to holding a jerry can of gasoline, and the Zippo his grandfather left him. He faltered as he went to pour the gas into the barrel.

All was quiet except the sound of the warm breeze pushing it’s way through the prairie grass, a cicada buzzing somewhere in the distance, the hens gently clucking around back. He stood there; eyes closed standing in the summer sun, taking in the quiet sounds of his life. He breathed a sigh of warm, thick summer air, poured the gas in, and lit the contents of the barrel. There were chores to do.


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