Fiction: Dirt

It’s Sunday and he has invited me on a drive out to the coast and I go with him. I meet him in the parking lot near his place and he looks at me hard.

We get in his nice car and at first it is uncomfortable but I fill up the silence easily. Outside of town we get a flat tire. I stay in the car because it’s drizzling but soon I get anxious and follow him out. He pries the hubcap off with his pocketknife and works the jack. I chatter away because silence makes me uncomfortable though sometimes my talking just makes it worse but I can’t stop. I ask him questions about the tire, which brings out some conversation from him because he knows about cars, which never hurt someone on purpose.

He is done and points to a dirt road off the main road. “Let’s go exploring.”

“Why?” I can’t remember the last time I set foot on a dirt road.

“I’ll be right back then.” He slouches off.

“Wait.” I follow him down the road. I hate being alone. The dirt road is short. There is a fence and past that, some decaying old buildings.

“What is it?”

“An abandoned farm,” he says, stepping over an ancient cow corpse. I follow.

Now we are getting close to the largest building, a barn or something. I half-pretend to get scared and grab his arm. It is easy to press my breast against him and I feel him tense up but he does not push me away. As we come around the barn we see life, a building with wild chickens around it. They make noise at us and a big rooster comes from around the back, running at us like a train. I turn and run a ways back and when I look back the rooster is circling around him, flapping and squawking. He watches it peck him, drawing blood on his sandaled feet, then he gives it a deliberate hard kick and it flops against the barn to the ground.

“You killed it!” I run up and kneel next to the flopping body.

“Not yet.” I hear the click of his pocketknife behind me and turn to watch him drive the blade through the rooster’s neck into the ground. It shudders once more and is still and there is blood everywhere. I stand up silently.

He smiles at me and picks up the corpse by its ancient, scaly feet which have long black talons. “Waste not.” He starts back to the car.

I follow.

Copyright 2008, all rights reserved. No part of this writing can be reproduced, rewritten, broadcast, or published without the written consent of the author.