collected unkept

"The tank's just empty, Pa. I dunno what gives."

Silas chewed on a reed and kicked at the tilled soil beneath his feet. It hadn't rained in weeks. Clouds hung low overhead, deep grey and menacing, but no matter how humid it got, how much the rich scent of precipitation filled the air, they wouldn't relinquish a drop.

Henry spat on the dusty ground and adjusted his hat. He leaned against a rusted tractor a few yards behind his son, the machine weighed down with heavy burlap bags, the season's third attempt at seeding the field.

Gradually rolling hills stretched before them, and continued beyond the horizon, each piece of farmland as barren as the neighboring plot. Henry smacked his lips.

"She's got fuel my boy. Filled 'er up myself."

A surprise to a childless family, Silas had just turned twenty three on an uncelebrated Tuesday, any acquaintances miles away, parentage distracted by poverty. By his tenth birthday, his father was an old man and Mom was long gone.

Flecks of blue paint chipped from the tractor as Henry stood, exposing the wasting remains of metal beneath.

Most days, they barely spoke, the words between them growing further and fewer as years went by. In the cold months, weeks would pass, neither uttering more than a grunt over a scrappy shared meal, a wordless command to add more wood to the fire.

Silas pushed a wisp of blonde hair behind his ear.

"I ain't talkin' about the gas. It's all of it, Pa. This place is a wasteland."

To Henry, it was a barrage, an onslaught of insult so dense, so laden with unfettered resentment that it caught the breath in his throat. For decades, he'd scarcely left the stretch of land he was born upon, where his grandfather had laid claim and paid for in blood.

In an instant, his son became a mutineer.

He stormed off toward the house in the distance, favoring his left hip in a crooked stride that reminded Silas of his father's age, the increasing weakness he'd never admit. With the knife kept fastidiously at his hip, Silas carved a gash in one of the seed sacks and got back to work.

Henry eased himself down onto the hand-hewn stairs and rested his back against the clapboard. He watched the obscured sphere of the sun traverse behind the clouds, and as it wandered near the horizon, escaping light painting the edge of the sky in deep orange and red, he heard the tractor rumble to a stop. Silas emerged as a phantom, the dust behind him saturated by the sunset, the hint of his shadow dancing across the crabgrass. Henry stood with a creak in his knees.

"So. You quit?"

In a wordless response, Silas slid past his father and into the house. His belongings were few, his sentiments meager.

Shuffling things into a leather satchel, he pushed two books, a whetsone, and three tins of sardines among his scraps of clothing, and after a moment of hesitation, left the the dingy tintype of his parents behind.

Outside, Henry cried.

He didn't have the language to name his anger, only the tears cascading from his face and the pounding in his withered chest. As Henry hunched and sat back down, the droplets fell around the stairs, disappearing all but instantly into the thirsty ground below. When Silas emerged, he could only seethe at the boy with a weeping rage he could barely understand.

"Maybe I'll come back some day."

The old man was silent as his son slung the bag on his shoulder, quickstepped down the stairs, and walked toward the growing dusk. He began to mutter as he climbed up to the small platform of a porch and lit a dustcaked lantern hanging near the door.

"Ought not. Only find a corpse."

Ten steps beyond a bed of thistle, the wildflowers relaxed their hold on the meadow, leaving a jagged square of short grass among the overgrowth. Julia approached the botanical oddity, face hot and nerves pulsing, and decided it was a perfect place to sit.

She pulled the blades between her fingers and cursed herself for walking away, for feeling anxious about nothing at all. The bombarding midday sun was tempered by a gentle breeze, and for the first time that day, Julia felt at ease. Purple and orange petals danced to silent rhythms as she gathered her thoughts, cross-legged and brow furrowed, her elbows digging into denim-clad thighs.

When Miguel approached, trampling stems and obliterating stamin, Julia felt a resurgence of irritation well before he spoke.

"You okay?"

He plopped on the grass beside her and cracked his neck. Julia knew, unequivocally, that he'd failed to notice the swimming colors before him, the elaborate tangle of multihued beauty that undulated in every direction. She locked her green eyes with his.

"No."

The pair shared an awkward silence. Loose acquaintances at best, they'd ocassionally exchanged lustful glances, the vague and flustered attraction that accompanies a dutiful pituitary. Julia momentatrily expected an attempt at courtship, but sensed something more genuine instead. She watched the stirring meadow, the wind gradually increasing its pace in a way that mirrored her heart rate.

"Have you ever been alone? In a roomful of people alone? Where all the prattle is reduced to static and the only thing you can do is stare out the window?"

Miguel was quiet. His nettlepricked ankles reminded him of the path to this place, and he wondered what compelled him to follow the girl, away from the claptrap conversations taking place just over the ridge. He kneaded his hands and tried to find a response.

"There are people around you always. You're never truly alone. I'm here..."

The wildflowers swayed in the wind, and with each innumerable gust, Julia felt the semblance of connection between them dwindle. She pulled her hands away from the ground and into her lap. Beneath the merciless sun, she felt the heat returning to her face. Miguel shrunk from her body language and reconsidered.

"Every last one of us is alone in a way, though, or lonely, and most of the things we do are the battle against it."

Julia gave a solemn nod, and again intertwined her hands with the grass beneath her hips. She drew in a deep breath, and kept her eyes on the flowing flora, waiting for Miguel to follow suit.

"Is that what you're doing?"

As she hoped, he gazed into the distance and let the colors bleed. A writhing pastel canvas unfolded before him, and a slow smile crept across his lips.

"Yes, and right now, I'm fighting for you too."

Marcy flipped the burgers meticulously, checking each for the appropriate char marks, the telltale bits of grease, and as she went to hang the tongs in their usual place, she missed the rail of the grill and dropped them into oblivion.

For several days, the Barvelle family had been trying to ignore the inevitable, going about their business as the ominous pit in their back yard gradually expanded. A few toys lost, a moderate invconvenience to the weekly badminton game, and ultimately, an eyesore that Marcy considered an unacceptable blemish on the lawn they'd worked so hard to keep.

The hole seemed hollow, but somehow unfillable. It wasn't empty space, exactly, but an inky darkness that undermined Marcy's authority over the household. A black chasm of temptation. As the tongs tumbled out of sight, she had the momentary urge to dive in after them. She shuddered, and called the boys to take their places at the picnic table.

She used a spatula to gently place patties on buns, her husband and sons climbing across the red varnished benches with condiments in hand. They filled their plates, and after a few passed dishes and careful squirts of mustard, the family of four began to eat.

When Billy, who hated the cabbage crunch of his mother's famous coleslaw, flicked his spoon and deftly hurled his portion over the grill and into the pit, his little brother screamed.

"William! Finish your food and straight to your room, and I don't want either of you playing around that... Thing."

The family ate in silence, save for a few murmors from Kevin, barely twelve months Billy's junior, who squirmed and shot glances at the shadowy circle in the grass. The ten year old could tell it was getting bigger.

With Billy banished to his bedroom, the remaining Barvelles went on with their evening routine, brushing teeth, a bit of news, and settling under the covers with books in hand and lamps within arm's reach.

Marcy snapped awake when she heard the back door slam, and shot out of bed when she heard the sound a second time. She rushed down the stairs, stumbling on her slippers, and by the time she made it onto the deck, both boys were well into the yard. She yelled their names, but neither of them turned around.

Even under the light of the near-full moon, the pit was opaque blackness, now stretched to an oval several feet across. The grill was nowhere in sight. The screen door clattered again, and Marcy jolted her gaze to her emerging husband, taking eyes off her children in the process.

"Honey, what's wrong? Boys?"

The couple sprinted down the deck stairs, running hand in hand across the lawn to find Billy alone, his back to them, standing at the precipice. Marcy put a hand on his shoulder, but her son didn't react. She spoke as calmly as she could, the oncoming sobs catching in her throat.

"Billy, where's your brother?"

The boy turned to her with a placid smile, soft brown curls falling into his eyes. For a fleeting moment, his mother marveled at how much he looked like her own brother, but shook off the thought as her husband knelt at her side and grabbed their son.

The hole at Billy's heels yawned behind him, swallowing the moonlight, and the boy tenderly placed his hand over his father's.

"Kevin said it's a door. I have to go after him."

No amount of bleach could battle the aging grey of Alfonse's apron. No method of chemical treatment could revive the brightness that once gleamed through the glass display cases, replaced now by a dishwater dinge from decades of use.

Each day, the old man faithfully tied the strings behind his back, and while the blood stains always came out, the passage of time was not so easily scrubbed away.

"Joey, get back here!"

As Alfonse slapped the cleaver back into its spot on the magnetic strip, joining the other razor sharp tools of the trade, his son strolled through the double doors gnawing on a toothpick.

The old man smiled wistfully at the sight, a mirage of his former self standing before him, and remembered having that thick black hair, that powerful jaw, an unscarred neck.

The boy blistered with confidence, his scant two decades on the planet spent handsome, dancing through his days with the high privilege of the beautiful.

"Hey Pop, what's up?"

Alfonse rubbed his hands together, the knots of his knuckles rubbing tectonic as he paced, his face growing grim.

"We've been at this a long time. Me, my father, your great grandfather. Years. The business of bones. That's what we're left with, you know?"

Joey nodded, and felt guilty for pretending to understand. He'd worked the cash register, tagged hamhocks on the weekends. For most of his life he was adjacent to the business at best, then slowly, as Uncle Ernie moved to Portland and Alfonse's hips got worse, responsibilites fell to the only heir of mention, the youngest of eleven.

His father beckoned him to come closer.

"You know the supply, you know the filet. You know the bacon-wrapped flanks those idiots wait in line for. But you don't know. You don't."

Alfonse rolled up his sleeves and reached for the strings at the small of his back. He fumbled for a few moments, and breathed a sigh of defeat as the boy came to his aid. Standing behind his father, Joey noted the curving trajectory of his spine, the whispy, white hair swirling around the crown of his skull. For perhaps the first time, Joey observed the weights borne by the man more than thrice his age.

"Pop, you don't have to worry. I've been paying attention. I've seen you do everything there is to do around here. I'm more capable than you think."

The young man deftly unraveled the apron strings and helped his father pull the loop over his head. He stood silently holding the tattered fabric, waiting for Alfonse to speak, half expecting a lecture on the thickness of ribeye.

"I'm tired, kid, and none of this gets any easier. I'm grateful for your help, I am... But cutlets are only part of the hustle. I'm telling you. You don't know shit."

Alfonse took the apron from his son's hand and tossed it over his shoulder. He nodded for Joey to follow, and slowly plodded his way to the office in the back of the small building his family had owned for a century. Easing himself into a chair behind the desk, Alfonse opened the bottom drawer and pulled out two glasses, then an unlabeled bottle of liquor. His hand shook slightly as he poured.

They shared a silent cheers and sipped amber liquid. Alfonse set down his glass and looked up with fear in his eyes.

"That old telephone booth out front by the sodas. A relic, right? Just a decoration from days gone by? It ain't. Not even close. That phone rings, but only at night. From now on, you're gonna answer it."

He poured more bourbon.

"See, it rang last night. They're coming. These people, well, you'll want to do exactly as they say. Won't be easy, but it's easier than crossing them."

Alfonse watched his youngest for a reaction. The baby of the family was notoriously level headed, and treated most encounters with an indifference that drew even more attention from admirers. In this moment, he was anything but cool and a thousand miles from aloof.

The leather of the aging desk chair whined as Alfonse rocked, and stood with a quiet grunt. He took a few steps toward his son. Pulling the glass from the boy's hand and draining its contents, the old man put a wrinkled hand on Joey's shoulder.

Stasis crested the four hour mark, and the inhabitants of Car 67 began to grow restless. Delays were normal, of course, but this stoppage was anything but. Since the moment they rumbled to a halt, nervousness festered, and as the sun set in the desert, the decorum of self-containment eroded into whispered discontent.

The screeching brakes had been an omen, unheeded in the moment as another mild annoyance that would eventually rectify itself.

Darla was the first to speak up, gathering her purple skirts as she stood and claimed an accidental authority she never expected to find on an unmoving train. Her voice was small, but as the eyes of Car 67 drew to her, she was bolstered in a way she hadn't felt in years.

"Friends, I don't have any answers. The trouble could be mechanical in nature, but there's no real way of knowing. I am disturbed that we've had no visit from a porter, nor an announcement from the loudspeaker. I want to mention, however, my trust in this mode of transport, and my deferance to the expertise of the crew. Perhaps we've heard naught because of the diligent work to resolve a predicament beyond our understanding."

She took to the aisles, pulling a violet cascade of fabric behind her. Darla tugged at the doors on either end of the car, twice apiece, to no avail. As she paced, the inkling of confidence faltered, and she flopped back into her seat as a shrill voice echoed from the far side of the car.

"Are we trapped?"

The mere mention stirred waves of panic among the passengers, and the whispers transmogrified into a dull roar of indignation. Still, Darla seemed the only one capable of addressing the crowd.

"Please, I beg you, be calm. The unknown is surely frightening, but we've no cause for alarm."

A shriek in the distance punctuated her plea at the precise moment the sun disappeared below the horizon. A hush fell upon the passengers, the taste of fear snatching the complaints from their throats. Car 67 shook violently, and the lights went out. An instant darkness drew inarticulate bursts of concern as a passenger in a khaki trenchcoat smashed the handle of his umbrella into the glass of the rear door.

"We have to get out of here."

Collectively, they weighed their options in silence. Desert loomed in every direction, the arid wind pouring through the shattered window at the back of the car. Another clarion howl spurred Darla away from her worries, and she stood, smoothing her skirt despite its invisibility.

"Perhaps my trust was unfounded. I know not the place to which we will flee, but flee we must."

The train lurched again, and Darla made her way hastily to the back of the car. She delilcately examined the opening, and began to crawl through, beckoning the others to follow. The residual bits of falling glass filled the quiet space between distant, cacophonous cries. Darla offered a breathless request.

"To the east."

bucking bronco brain an unsaddled disposition

chemical or actual it's tough to tell the difference

fences erected, cull the whims that drive the isolation

stop the stampede blasphemy trap horsepower in the station

kicks to the chest prove lethal and tactile

the way manure makes the difference between clean stable and rat pile

a barrier is best, to climb atop illogical a beast in the flesh, to calm it is impossible