Up In The County by keith pearson

The green car had Jersey plates.

I’m going for a walk by the pond she said. “Ok”. He never saw her again.

The sky was a single blue and white wave caught in a second of time.

Tom believed we only had so many words and one day we simply had nothing left to say.

She saw nothing but the first red leaves in the trees.

A storm passed over and cut a muddy swipe thru the garden that left the sunflowers weeping.

What they didn’t know left him stunned.

Tom lost his way in the radiant glow of the afternoon sun.

Her grandfather had been in the war and wore a blue moustache that washed away when it rained.

One plus one is three she said and smiled in a way he did not then understand.

All hell broke lose at the nursing home square dance.

The sun and the rain and the moon left scars on his wrinkled scalp.

A report of suspicious behavior was nothing more than cats playing in the graveyard.

His dog barked at the apples that fell from the tree in their yard.

Birds there flew in circles for no reason.

The sunflowers had assumed their autumnal slump. In the dawn fog deer ate apples from the wet grass.

He sold his shotgun for twenty bucks and they found the bill folded in his wallet when he died.

When he was a boy he spent hours with Tom watching the trout in the pool beneath the old mill.

Her mother never forgave her for the thing only the two of them could see.

The largest boulder in the county split in two. No one discovered it for days.

He would watch them as he tended his bees. They would walk thru the orchard hands joined or kicking at the fruit spoiled in the grass. Sometimes they would point to the odd circle of birds in the sky.

She woke to discover her mouth empty.

 A green car was found deep in the woods. There was a tree growing where the engine had been.

keith pearson was born and raised in new hampshire and works at a local high school in the math department.