Shorts - Flash Fiction

Indistinct shadows moved in the dusk as a low bellow of a cow wafted across the pasture like a spectral shadow. An outline of a bird pulled a fat prize from the earth from the side of a dirt road, lined with winter-swept trees. Their barren branches stabbed at the sky like shards of brittle bones.

​

A muted hint of pre-dawn light barely separated the red farmhouse from the surrounding fields. White trim of the windows and doors outlined the thinnest separation between home and nature.

​

Inside the house the elderly woman opened her eyes allowing them to adjust to the dimness. She was awake long before the languid winter sun. Her mind an early morning blankness, a wide-open agenda of the day ahead. With one hand outside the warm coverings, she absently traced the stitching of the quilted heirloom in silence as she considered the opportunities and challenges of the day.

​

With no conscious thought, she was instinctively tuned to the ebb and flow of the land, the herd, and her husband. Time washed over her and the shadows in the corners faded as she thoughtfully ordered her household chores, routines, shopping, and ever-present maintenance of a thousand-acre ranch. As usual, once the necessary information had been recalled to the forefront of her mind, she began at the end. Her first active thoughts centered around him. What would he want for dinner? She tried to remember what his day held in store. Irrigating? Moving one of the herds to a new pasture? Fixing a broken tractor? Did he have to run to town for parts? Normally, these pieces fell immediately into place, but today her mind refused to focus. A dissonant wave of uncertainty washed over her, clouding her thoughts.

​

Then she saw the fresh flowers sitting in the new vase on top of the sturdy, ten-drawer dresser and stopped mid-thought. The life went out of her chest. Her restless fingers froze on the stitching and her mouth went dry. Without shifting her gaze from the flowers, her left hand tested the landscape of the blue and white patchwork feeling her way across the bed.

​

She knew every inch of her life, her ranch, and her home. On the covers, her fingers recognized even the slightest change of each pattern. The double stitching, angled corners, light blue runner, and finally the heavier, white trim of the border.

​

When her arm reached the far edge of the bed, her breath caught, and she was weighed down by the unbearable emptiness of her soul.

​

Bud was not there.

​

Her husband of sixty-four years was no longer by her side. Not in bed, not in the fields. He had simply ceased to be.

The implications seeped into her life. And she closed her eyes as the events of the previous day drifted unbidden into her thoughts like a cold draft under a too-short door.

​

The phone call.

​

Sophie picking her up and driving her to the hospital.

​

The unwelcoming row of white plastic chairs in the long, sterile hallway.

​

Everything had been fast… and so busy. From the traffic on the roads to the crammed parking garage with too-narrow turns. Dozens of people passing every which way, all of them at double speed. In the hospital, harried staff in starched whites passed like ants on a sugar cube, then - visitors. Several came straight from the fields, the day’s work still marking their clothes and rough hands. Some of the ones from town came cleaned for church, showing up in suits and dresses. Entire families with too many children to count. None of them were her husband.

She was told his body had been moved somewhere else in the hospital to free up a treatment room for the next patient. Bud was lying alone - on a cold table - in a dark room.

​

Her lifelong compass and anchor was gone, and she bobbed adrift in a sea of familiar faces. Worlds away; her ears were far… unable to hear their whispers of regret or feel the distant hugs. She absently fingered the metal ball on the hasp of her purse. Using her finger and thumb to twist it open, then snap it closed.

It was all she could think to do.

​

 

Now, lying alone in her bedroom she tried in vain to plan for a day that held no meaning. All her routines were shattered. Nothing served a purpose. She didn’t need to consider anyone else’s schedule. Meals would be single servings and laundry would run only as she needed. She supposed someone else was already looking out for the herd, changing the irrigation, fixing machinery, running to town.

​

Staring blankly, she asked if any of it ever mattered. If they had never fixed a single fence would there have always been someone right behind them fix it instead?

​

In the stillness, she looked out the window, admiring the straightness of the fence and tightness of the gate. Bud was always a stickler about such things. But what did it really matter? She considered the countless hours replacing the old barbed-wire runners. The new electric fences looked better, but was it worth the days they spent digging holes, cutting wire, laying it out? Could they have just as easily passed the day sitting in bed? Enjoying one another’s company? Staring out the big picture window at a slightly sagging fence?

​

 

She laid still for some time; looking out the window, watching the sun climb higher in the sky. Cows bellowed louder and more often now. The sun was fully up. Another day started anew. She heard Little Ray’s truck in the field down by the old horse barn.

​

Several more minutes passed. But they served no purpose. Wind rustled the dry, empty branches on the trees.

And the rancher’s widow got dressed and began cleaning windows.