Post by slashmaster on Aug 24, 2006 7:06:13 GMT -8
I remember when I was a kid living along the weaving dusty back roads of Western Montana. We had a little cabin pressed right up against the Rocky Mountains, and every day I’d get up to do my learning and my chores and I’d stand out in the dewdrops and the cold to blink up at its imposing shadow and watch the sun drip gold into the sky. I always did it alone, and it was the only time in the day that was mine and just mine, until my litter sister Penny figured out what I was doing and not only scolded me for muddying my shoes but for doing this every day without telling her first. Penny’s a bossy one, and I figure that some day she’ll be a real good mom, if she can wrestle down a guy who can take her yapping in the first place.
But for a while it was okay. Me and her, two little girls with our hair still down and messy, with our sleeping skirts still on and trailing down so low we had to hold them up to keep them out of the mud, watching the sun rise. Penny just thought it was beautiful, but she had a mind narrow as a stick and just as common, and usually she got bored before it was finished, or she only saw it as the sun rising and making everything look nice for a little while. Usually she’d pick up her shoes from the porch and just trot off like nothing had happened, but I’d stay and stare until I got sick and blind.
I usually got in trouble for being such a daydreamer, but geeze, what else have I got three brothers for? They should do all the work, not me. I’m supposed to be a lady and I don’t need to be running around in my slippers to dump leftover slop into the pigpens any more than I need to be hopping on a motorcycle and hitting LA. But whenever I got caught daydreaming my mom’d give my hands a nice sting with whatever she was holding – a spoon, a hairbrush, a shoe. I never took heart to the punishment, though, and I would make a story out of anything and nearly everything I did.
I was peeling potatoes one night for supper, around the time when I was nine years old, and my sister was six, when my daddy starting hollering, and my brothers starting howling, and then Penny came tearing out and in to see what was the matter, before she came back screaming and flailing her hands around her hair and shouting, “bees, bees!â€
My mom was up in a flash, but before she could get to the door there was Daddy, heaving and gasping for air, his hands stung red. He just gave my mom a business look and grabbed his shotgun off the wall.
The three of us followed him outside, and he went right up the place where the forest trees brushed the front porch awning. On the picnic table nearby my brothers were whooping and shouting and pushing their fists wherever they could, and Daddy shot twice, real fast.
I was standing right there by the door, and above the screaming and the buzzing and the gunfire, I imagined a waterfall had broken free from heaven, and was raining golden water bullets on me.
-- A novel idea just popped into my head this morning, so I decided to put it down on paper (or computer, rather). I'm not sure of it yet, but I like the character already. It might sound like it's something out of the 1800's or something, I don't know, but really it's about 1995 or so. These guys are just old hicks hanging around in the forest, you know the type.
But for a while it was okay. Me and her, two little girls with our hair still down and messy, with our sleeping skirts still on and trailing down so low we had to hold them up to keep them out of the mud, watching the sun rise. Penny just thought it was beautiful, but she had a mind narrow as a stick and just as common, and usually she got bored before it was finished, or she only saw it as the sun rising and making everything look nice for a little while. Usually she’d pick up her shoes from the porch and just trot off like nothing had happened, but I’d stay and stare until I got sick and blind.
I usually got in trouble for being such a daydreamer, but geeze, what else have I got three brothers for? They should do all the work, not me. I’m supposed to be a lady and I don’t need to be running around in my slippers to dump leftover slop into the pigpens any more than I need to be hopping on a motorcycle and hitting LA. But whenever I got caught daydreaming my mom’d give my hands a nice sting with whatever she was holding – a spoon, a hairbrush, a shoe. I never took heart to the punishment, though, and I would make a story out of anything and nearly everything I did.
I was peeling potatoes one night for supper, around the time when I was nine years old, and my sister was six, when my daddy starting hollering, and my brothers starting howling, and then Penny came tearing out and in to see what was the matter, before she came back screaming and flailing her hands around her hair and shouting, “bees, bees!â€
My mom was up in a flash, but before she could get to the door there was Daddy, heaving and gasping for air, his hands stung red. He just gave my mom a business look and grabbed his shotgun off the wall.
The three of us followed him outside, and he went right up the place where the forest trees brushed the front porch awning. On the picnic table nearby my brothers were whooping and shouting and pushing their fists wherever they could, and Daddy shot twice, real fast.
I was standing right there by the door, and above the screaming and the buzzing and the gunfire, I imagined a waterfall had broken free from heaven, and was raining golden water bullets on me.
-- A novel idea just popped into my head this morning, so I decided to put it down on paper (or computer, rather). I'm not sure of it yet, but I like the character already. It might sound like it's something out of the 1800's or something, I don't know, but really it's about 1995 or so. These guys are just old hicks hanging around in the forest, you know the type.
