Creative WritingFiction
THE LONG ROAD HOME As published in The Nemadji Review
Ren pressed her forehead against the cool glass of the bus window and watched the farmland roll by in the fading light, the outlines of withered corn stalks drifting listlessly in the winter air. She didn’t know a lot about farming, except for what she had learned from her father’s tales of working the family farm when he was a boy. But he had long been estranged from his parents, cut off emotionally and financially for reasons he refused to speak of. She had never met them – did not even know if they were still alive – only that they had moved to Seattle the summer she turned nine...
DEAR MASON
The swollen sun hung in a colorless sky. I shaded my eyes and scanned the horizon. Nothing but waves of heat radiated back at me. Of course only I was crazy enough to be out here at this godforsaken time of day when even the most heat-loving creatures had retreated to their dens. I kicked a pebble and it flashed quartz, winking in the sunlight before disappearing over the rocky grade sounding a faint ping when it struck the metal body of the Jeep parked below. Shit, I sighed to myself. Leave it to me to hit the only thing of value within a 50-mile radius...