As midnight approaches, I post this, the shortest offering yet. What lies below is all I could salvage out of what must have been 1000 words. Pathetic. Ah, well, just part of that lovely “process” I’m so graciously working through for anyone who cares to see. Back tomorrow.
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. He trod steady and straight, paying no mind for the footprints in the churned soil or the inch high sprouts flattened beneath his feet, toward the front porch that was on the other side of the next windbreak.
Will’s trek across the field had left a substantial amount of soil clumped on his shoes. This pleased him, as he thought it would make a fine point if he could leave a pile of dirt where he stood on the porch. He could then make a statement like, “If it’s the land next door you’re after, this is all you’re going to get—starting now.” His disappointment was genuine when he found the trip through the far windbreak and the distance crossed over the lawn to find that the grass and undergrowth and taken almost all of it away. Standing on the porch, he stomped several times, freeing a few meager clumps from the treads of shoes. It made for a poor representation of righteous outrage. It would have to do, though he’d lost all faith in its potential. He gave himself another moment to solidify his indignation.
There was a doorbell button on the outside frame, but Will pounded on the edge of the screendoor. Childhood memory was his cause for not ringing. The doorbell was there as a warning. Only total strangers, solicitors and those Jehovah’s Witnesses from Breda used a doorbell in Limburg County. The doorbell was a warning of unwelcome interaction or outsiders. Friends and neighbors knocked.
Oh, boy….