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Chapter 1
Breathing into the cold air, and taking the cold air in. The earth was hard from the winter, and the plants were still dead. A fence lay across the horizon, with the warm sun peeking over the edge of the earth. Birds were slowly waking up as the morning made itself known.
Animals inside barns were waking up. Dogs were starting to bark at the birds and chase them around the barn. The white barn was full of things awakening and life beginning for another day.
The door of the house near the barn was slowly opening. A cat stuck its head out of the small opening. The cat sniffed the air with its black nose. Its green eyes were looking at a red pick up truck that had just driven in to the driveway.
A window was rolled down from the inside of the car. Someone with rough and worn hands let an arm hang out. The cat just stared from the safety of the house.
“C’mon John!” the person who the rough hand belonged to, shouted. The voice was rough and might’ve had a tint of happiness, which had been in it once.
The cat was pushed out of the door as a boy with shaggy blonde hair ran out, holding a black and white skateboard. His blue collared shirt was baggy and halfway tucked in to his khaki shorts. A wallet hung loosely from a chain. The boy had set his backpack outside earlier, before he went to feed the horses. The backpack was a faded dark blue.
A book almost fell out of the bag as John picked it up as he ran. John’s hands had securely closed the bag as he got in to the truck, realizing he had left it open.
“John, your wallet was hanging out of your pocket. Again,” the driver pointed out as he looked back at John.
John’s eyes showed that he was surprised and he fumbled to check that he still had money for lunch.
“You have money?” the driver asked, his brown eyes getting to become filled with impatience. John nodded as he brought his eyes up to look at his dad. He knew that there was little they had in common, asides from the fact that they lived in the same house and did their work.
John knew his eyes were a crystal blue, while his father’s were a dark brown, often times tired from the work he had to do. John’s hair was a shaggy blonde, and his dad’s hair was a mousy brown that was usually combed back. His dad was rough looking, while John was a delicate but often lazy or sleepy looking.
The seats in the car were soft leather, from all the times they had been slept on. The car smelled like smoke and food from all the travels in the past years. It also smelled like the perfume that John’s mother usually wore. It was almost like a second home to John.
It was silent in the car for a while. Then John’s dad finally decided to turn up the radio. The music wasn’t loud and it wasn’t very common amongst people to want to listen to it. It was classical and soothing for mornings that would take a long time to pass by.
Fields lined the country road. Some of the fields were for corn, or soybeans, while others were for cows and horses that worked for the farmers. Barns were visible from the road, but a good half of a mile away from it.
“Dad, why doesn’t mom ever leave her room anymore?” John asked his dad finally.
“She just doesn’t want to son. She just doesn’t want to,” John’s dad answered. He said the same thing every morning when John asked that question.
Sometimes I just think he says that because he isn’t sure himself. John would often think afterwards. But John would eventually forget that his father seemed to never know the answer to anything, so it was usually a bad idea to ask him questions.
Earlier that year, John’s mom, Julia, had started to stay in her room all morning. Slowly and gradually it came to the point that all she did was sit in her room. There were things that might’ve caused it to happen, but everyone was still unsure. Like a horseback riding accident with John that had caused him to break his arm and have a large cut on his forehead.
That accident was the one that had scared everyone in the family, except for John. All he did was get back on his horse and ride as if nothing happened.
But today, there was nothing to even bother to look back at. School was almost over, and John wasn’t up for the End of the Year Dance. All the girls had to ask a guy, and not the other way around. Also, the farm was getting more and more popular. People all around town were starting to become interested in riding horses, and John’s family was the only barn with plenty of horses.
The truck squealed as it turned the corner in to the middle school. A bump signified that it wasn’t able to turn the corner tight enough. Several people stood around the main door in to the school.
Inside the main doors, people were rushing to get to their lockers and then talk to their friends. The lockers banged as people closed them, and they clicked as they opened. The doors were cold and hard from the night before.
John opened the door of the truck and slid out. He grabbed his backpack from the floor of the truck, where his feet were a few seconds earlier.
 m.ikstar · Fri May 25, 2007 @ 11:34pm · 0 Comments |
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