Summer stood still. Summer doesn’t stand still. Fall fell with solitude. The older sister who had nothing to prove. Winter didn’t think twice. Winters fury comes quiet, silent. Spring reminiscent of summers fury, was cyclical. At times she could fume, otherwise she was the most futile of them all. Summer stands alone; she is motion, noise, life. But in this moment summer stood still.

That June was dry and still. The cottonwood caught on burnt grass accumulating like snow piles. It was hot and unrelenting. We were leaving a brutal winter so it was taboo to speak against the cruel heat. I walked along the gravel road, the crunching grass beneath my chucks singing of a life once lived in its brown blades.

But something was different. I paused breathing in and out, the sound of my respirations the only thing keeping me company. My eyes, blue encompassing gold and green around the pupil; two little earths swimming in my skull darting around looking for the interruption. Not even a bird song or a dog barking in the distance. Silence roaring in my ears. So I took another step. Crunch.

What was I to make of myself? The question I’ve been asking long before my cerimonial torpedo into adulthood. I was returning home after my shift at our town’s favorite dive bar. In the fall I could enroll into a graduate program. Eventually becoming a professor of English like my father. My sister’s all making names of themselves while I did what? Remained ordinary, predictable.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

My grandmother left me a small sum. A key to a lock box at the local credit union. I couldn’t be bothered to schedule an appointment to unlock this small inheritance and to be frank the thought made me a bit queasy. Was I to use the money to see the world outside of the small valley in the fly over state I have never left?

I fumbled in my bag brushing away my far to long brownish blonde hair, thinking to myself I should have had Cameron braid my hair this morning if I hadn’t slept in. The Irish curls becoming quite unruly in the summer humidity. I placed my key into the lock and clicked the door open. No one was typically awake at this hour, normally I would try my best to softly slip into our home. Well loved by many families before us, earning a historic plaque from the city on the outside, and a reputation with the residences of the city softly whispered amongst themselves these past centuries. It was 3:00 am, for bar staff a perfectly normal time to return home after counting the till and cleaning up after your last patron. Tonight however I wasn’t alone, a small lamp in the kitchen emitting a soft golden light. I met eyes with a woman I’ve never seen before with the same bright eyes as my own clutching my father’s favorite “Ohio is for lovers mug” my mother across from her at our old dining room table looking terribly uncomfortable dressed in my fathers old state college crew neck and summer pajama shorts. The women next to her looking practically regal in a fashion I haven’t seen before. “Hello August” is all she said as I turned from the back door, not smiling. “It’s Auggie” I replied. Slowly shifting and locking eyes with my mother a steaming mug in front of her. A third mug untouched at an empty seat before me.