Summer Air 2.0

The gravel spewed up from the tires as she sped away pelting him with rocks, and leaving a cloud of dust and dirt to turn his tears to tiny splotches of mud on his face. She was leaving for good this time. She wanted more than what he could give her. More than the simple life they had. More than he wanted or was capable of. He turned back to the old farmhouse, and slowly made his way back up the hill.




He headed directly for the kitchen and began to fix his lunch; a simple sandwich, potato chips and a glass of tap water. He sat down at the table and ate in silence. When he finished, he got up, washed his plate and cup and left them to dry on a worn out dish towel on the counter. He headed upstairs, and went to their bedroom to begin clearing it out.



An hour 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 residing in a rusted out burn barrel which he 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.