[Facebook] STOP TIPPIN’ MAH COWS
So, I couldn’t resist, so you guys get 3 stories on 2 nights.
I had the idea before the status, and it took me a while to find a status to fit it.
Enjoy!
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Status update: In the middle of the country
The clock tells him it’s in the middle of the afternoon, a time falling between when the sun had passed it’s peak and before the waning of the light impressed into the world. A glance out the kitchen window tells a much different story: a storm is gathering, menacing clouds pushing each other up as they tower over the plain. Low thunder rumbles, sub-audible shockwaves jittering glassware balanced on the kitchen counter. He gathers them in a flash, pushing them into the cupboard before glancing out the window again. The light had become fleeting in the face of the encroaching whirlwind, and he turns away: there are still storm preparations to be finished.
He’s a simple man: he couldn’t make it as an English major, couldn’t keep any of his jobs, and couldn’t keep his girl. He guessed she couldn’t handle the thought of moving out to a farm, and he had clutched her shirt to his chest, shedding a tear or two (maybe there were more, but that didn’t matter) ignoring the cries that began to emmanate from his newborn son’s crib for all of five minutes. Five minutes was all he spent thinking about her, because even if he was terrible with people, by god he would be a good father. And he guessed he had done fine, although he failed in an oblique way when his son joined the military. Like mother, like son, he guessed.
He stepped in from the porch, the downpour suddenly directing itself sideways along with a friendly gale. He slammed the door shut, not relishing the thought of sopping up the corridor. He flicked the kitchen light on, and flicked the dial of his radio to see if anyone knew if tornadoes were sighted. Only static: he supposed that this might be one of those new fangled storms that were dispersing the copious amounts of plasma that had leaked from low-orbit fuel ferries. Damn corporations should’ve cleaned up the mess, but instead they decided that interferring with the electromagnetic communications of most of the world was an acceptable consequence. More thunder rolled through the house, rumbling groans of discontent from a heavily laden sky. He flicked open his mobile: the electromagnetic interference was something fierce, as the mobile was barely able to connect to an access point 10 feet away. Of course, there was no net connection: he hadn’t been able to pay the phone bill again. Or was it because the dial-up company had gone out of business? He knew it was shutting down soon, and there was no way to find out. Well, except to dig out the letters and look…
He sipped his tea, reading his son’s latest letter. He had somehow missed it, filling it away before carefully perusing it. Quite unlike him. Well, he wasn’t in the military, and didn’t have his son’s compulsion for order and speed instilled into himself. And how the aerospace corp loved order and speed: stationed in the upper atmosphere, there was only a small amount of air to drag on the sleek craft, but enough to clean out any of the deadly debreis that infested empty space. The corp was free to scream through the sky, serving to sever any enemy connection between the ground and space, sometimes preying on craft that swam through the lower atmosphere. He had never actually seen his son in action, just watched tube vids of press-ready showcase manuvers. Still, he was proud, and with international relations in the state they are in, his son just might have to protect the country.
Thunder rolled; the baritone speaker in the sky had gotten closer. He fancied that the very foundations of the house had to have been shaken. At least the wind was slackening, and he could see through the rain again, watching the clouds light up with lightning. Sometimes, the clouds seemed to glow, followed by sharper, tenor cracks unlike the rumbling baritone of the thunder he had been hearing. Well, plasma will do strange things to a familiar weather pattern… The rain had begun to slacken, so he fetched a chair, perching on the porch to watch for the rainbow that inevitably followed the storm. He sighed, sat back, and looked up just in time to see the sky falling.