The Two of Us
Friday, February 27th, 2009
Attention at that hour is usually directed to the first light. Our window was open to the moment the clouds came into color and eventually relented to sunshine, but nothing was said about it. We sat with our backs to the open blinds while the brightness dulled the words on our monitors. We wrote with our shoulders warming in the heat that can be found from anything that sits in the sun long enough. The middle-week spring weather was faded. At 20 degrees, the traffic was breathing cold exhaust over the guard rails and cement barriers. And while this was the scene behind us, the thick glass kept the world corporate-silent, the only flaw in its protection being the far away train whistles that broke the see-through barrier. (more…)
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Tags: Country
Cobblestones take over at the slight rise in the road and the buildings thin out for country fields. Fit together with jagged sides, the bricks cause the sounds from passing vehicles to switch to a hum lower than the rubber wheels normally give on dull asphalt. At the same place the ordinary asphalt turns red, the street narrows, and an old fireplace wrapped in dead vines stands where the land falls away. (more…)
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Tags: Country
Open Fields
Sunday, February 1st, 2009
Grown high before the harvest and now barren with dust, the cornfields wait in the winter-weak sunshine for the plans to be drawn. The suburban neighborhoods start to ring outward some miles from the city’s industrial edges and the development finally stops a mile from this open ground. These fields were thick last autumn, but this late in winter produce knee-high dirt clouds with the wind’s help that spin out in the gullied crop rows. (more…)
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Tags: Country
Maybe as many as 1,000 Xs and scuff marks are imprinted on the wooden stage top. The criss-crosses made with tape once identified a particular place on stage for an actor to stand or a dancer to step were peeled away leaving sticky bits on the grainy wood. Carved so deeply darkly into the wood, the scuffs where nervous children dragged their feet during a performance appear to be intentional, like some form of graffitti. Many of these imperfections date back to the 1950s, when the high school was brand new and the times were simpler – but not by much. (more…)
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Tags: Country
Search lights sweep loosely in the misty air above the country airport grounds. Round and round, an effect that resembles faint psuedo-moonlight is cast on the bare trees, the holy rusted chain-link fence, the crevices in the uneven ground that show through red as clay. The airplanes are unanswered prayers tonight that can’t see the beacon for its as weak as the faith shown by the tower crew. (more…)
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Tags: Country, Free Writing
