For IG's Out of Standard Challend on Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads.
With one tractor
wheel hopelessly stuck in a blow out, he unwrapped the foil from his sandwich
and put his feet on the dash and ate unfettered. In the glow of the radio light,
he accompanied Waylon and Willie in twangy ham and cheese tones. Twelve miles
from the house, he would be here through the night, but that was alright by
him. He always had his sketch pad and his flask and in this case, something he had
little of these days, time. Sitting in a million dollars worth of
equipment, it still boiled down to a sandwich, Waylon and Willie and a working man’s
hopes and dreams, but mostly the sandwich.
She hung up
her cell phone and heaved a breathy sigh as she looked out the window toward
the Lindsay’s northern most beet field.
But she couldn’t see him, he was too far out. He wouldn’t be back for
breakfast, maybe lunch, but probably not.
She turned the heat up to seventy eight, not because she was cold, just because
she could. She made some tea and sat wrapped in his Denver Broncos blanket on
the front porch and wondered how things might have been different if he would
have taken that job on the dairy farm in Phoenix, a little closer to
civilization. That damned great horned owl was sitting on top of light pole scanning
the grounds for another easy meal, two cats had gone missing already. It was
definitely survival of the fittest out here when night fell.
He drifted
to off to sleep with thoughts of fly fishing Montana and what his calves would
bring at the auction.
She drifted
off to sleep wondering when it would be a good time to tell he was going to be
a father.
Neither of
them could hear the flap of the wings and the almost silent kill as the cat
population on the farm suffered yet another set back.
Copyright Corey Rowley 2012
