Secret Town Road
The rain pattered against the car roof, the hood, the windows, the windshield, even the antenna, occasionally, with a deeper sproing-ing sound. It danced off the roadway and sort of danced aurally inside the car. The radio was on, but the announcer was nothing but background noise to the constant drone of the rain as his car and the others on the highway whooshed through puddles barely given time to form.
"Red," was the overwhelming thought going through his mind.
Taillights flashed constantly off and on, silently, on the road ahead, as if the cars were dancing with one another, pulling each other in, letting their partners out, twirling around corners and bends at various speeds, sometimes waltzing, sometimes salsa-ing. One in particular, or at least he thought it was one car, weaved in and out of lanes, never disappearing for longer than a few beats of the rain, the brakes pumping on and off, step, on and off, step, step, on, off. Like a cobra mesmerized by a flute, blinking slowly, ever slowly, and nodding back and forth, side to side, until it steadied and stopped, unable to pass that music.
He became that same car for someone else, further back in the procession, as he slightshotted across the lanes, and off up an exit. "Escape velocity," they may have been thinking.
...
It had been nineteen eighty six, and the garden soil was still damp from a rain. He had been given the seeds for... something. It may have been his birthday. They were Black-Eyed Susans. He had taken the package and a pair of gardening gloves which were too big for his tiny hands, and a trowel from the windowsill in the kitchen, by the door. The deep windowsill they used for all the outdoorsy utensils: the trowel, a pair of clipping shears for the hedges, a female coupler and replacement nozzle for the garden hose.
He went out around the side of the house, passing the cords of wood for the fireplace covered in their plastic sheets, and down into the woods across the driveway; a cracked palimpsest of grays and blacks from the sun and the rain and oil spots, weeds springing up in the crevices.
Just at the edge of the pine trees there was fine black soil, and just clear of pine needles in the space between the forest and the grass. It was here he dug a series of small holes, in the soil the afternoon sun had failed to completely dry at this late stage, and he placed a few seeds in each until the packet was emptied. At the end, he had one hole left over from his efforts with the trowel. And into this he put an acorn he had the pocket of his flannel vest.
...
The side road was dark, by any means you wished to think of it. There were no streetlights, no moonlight, no more taillights lighting the way. Only his underpowered and somewhat skewed, now that he saw them and them alone, headlights.
And he was headed... home.
To be continued...
Summary
disclaimer:
Apologies to anyone desperately clicking reload on their browser, hoping that we just forgot to send out the weekly update mail (which you, too, can get by signing up on our contacts page).
We didn't. We're just slightly late. What with putting together the bicycle, hammock, computer, computer desk, computer chair, and hair dryer we received for Christmas from doting fans and friends alike, we were just a little bit too wrapped up in our newfound gifts. And, would you believe, the next time we looked up from our presents it turned out it was Wednesday, and the dogs were scratching at the door. And a couple of forlorn emails sat in our inbox, wondering, politely, where the hell we were.
Sorry, guys (non-gender-specific use of 'guys' there, of course).
So here we are. Just a little magazine, asking you, a reader, to forgive us. And, of course, read the issue.
Or at the very least the summary. And maybe tell all your friends about it, as well.
Thanks a million.
We'll see you next week, probably on time. Fresh-faced and cheery.
We'll be less fresh-faced the next week, but then, hey ho, that's how it goes.
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