Go me!
Unedited excerpt -
A Handful of Prairie Docks
It hurts your eyes to look at a horizon that has no end. Your vision wavers and aches at the edges trying to take it all in, your brain feebly trying to process just how small you are in comparison to this horizon, turned down at the edges with the curve of the earth.
We had parked the Ford on a dirt road between two wheat fields and there was nothing but swaying rust coloured stalks in all directions, a sea of grain. It felt so desolate, in a good kind of way, half drunk on loneliness while the two of us were leaning against each other, letting the warm breeze sweep in one open window and out of the other. Maybe it should have felt more illicit, some runaway rendezvous with a borrowed truck and two teenagers with sweet kisses but no one cared that we were out here. Nobody even knew, and that freedom was almost a bore. What was the thrill in driving all the way out here for fumbling that was allowed? No one back the miles of road that would screw up their face and cluck their tongue in distaste at the thought of Noah’s hand down the front of my denim shorts. But I could pretend, I was good at that. I could pretend that the whole country, the whole world was covered in wheat that hissed in the wind. I could pretend that we were being hunted by raving, mad at the mouth parents with ideals of purity. Or I could pretend that the dark shape of the scarecrow in the middle of the field was some dirty pervert waiting to see our fumbling while jerking off in his pants.
Hot vinyl stuck my legs to the seats, tight like a second skin even if the heat of the day had passed. There were even clouds rolling in from the east, darkening at the bottoms like soiled cotton. Rain was coming, or maybe it would just tease out dry lightning, the heat liked to do that. Thunder growled miles away, a tremor heard more with our bones than our ears and even if Noah was champing with fervent boy lust, I wanted to watch the storm roll in over us. The sheets of grain whispered louder, swaying against each other in waves that rippled towards the truck and beyond, passing along the message of the storm coming. With the breeze cooling, it brought more thunder, louder this time and quick like a camera flash, light licked at the sky. A bulb burst and then gone, leaving stars in my vision that reminded me of polaroid adventures the summer before. Where had I put all those pictures? One of us wide eyed, tongues hanging out like dogs, half naked down at the river and sucking malts in the middle of a downtown street. Snapshots of memories that rarely took up space in my mind anymore. Gone so quickly, making room for others of more importance.
