When she designed the garden she thought about practical things like the space between the raised beds being large enough for a wheelbarrow, the raised beds being tall enough that you could tend them without hurting your back, plumbing running to the beds so you could set a timer and not have to spend two hours every morning watering the garden. She did not think of things that would be just as important later and much more obvious like the garden itself being beautiful.

Due to the enormity of the project and the skill required to complete it, she hired a man to build it for her. They were on the same page, or so she thought, and she left him to it. Later that day when she came out to check on progress she was dismayed to find that things had not been begun as discussed. There was now a large step to get up and over into the garden, entirely impractical for the use of wheelbarrows, there were now large posts sticking up throughout the space which would later be used to help create a netted canopy to protect against birds.

The man explained to her the reasons for these things. She understood in practical terms why they were necessary, but did not understand why he didn’t simply tell her before hand they would be needed. Perhaps there could have been another way, a different way, a better way. This was to be the first of many disappointments and if she’d known she would have ceased work on the garden immediately. Sadly, the work continued.

Water lines were run underground and into the middle of each bed but they weren’t run until after the beds had been built and gopher wire strung and stapled. Now the gopher wire was cut to make room for the water lines. None of this was her plan. The water lines were plumbed such that they simply couldn’t water the garden as necessary and had to be re-plumbed and then re-plumbed again.

By now her excitement for the garden had waned and her dislike of the project and the way it was being handled had turned to loathing. The project was to be completed in two weeks time but suddenly the man in charge ceased to arrive. Nothing was happening in the half-contrived space and the deadline was drawing near. Every day the man assured her the project would be completed on time and every day no one arrived to work on it. She began to spend her afternoons and evenings out in the garden, working to build the garden space she no longer wanted.

When the final day of the project arrived and the man didn’t, she was glad she’d continued the work, irate that she hadn’t simply taken it upon herself to do it all herself to begin with, and grateful that at least by working on it herself she’d managed to do some things the way she wanted. When the man arrived two days later to “finish up” she told him not to bother and not to come back.

It was not as satisfying as she’d hoped. Like the garden, the dismissal of it’s creator was disappointing.

When the space was finally complete she drank a beer in celebration. Tomorrow she would begin planting. Her excitement for the garden returned.

The space was so large and her seed bank so full that it took the entire morning to plant half the space. She took a break for lunch, nothing more than a quick bite of apple and cheese, a bit of bread with real mustard and a few capers. She was back out and planting before the leftover mustard had begun to crust on the knife. She finished planting the second half of the garden and heaved a deep sigh with her hands on her hips and a smile on her face. She grabbed another beer and drank it while watering and singing to the seeds.

The sun came and went, came and went. The sprinkler system worked as it should. Around the fifth day she noticed a slightly different color to the luscious dirt in the beds. That would be the seeds starting to germinate, the little leaves still too small to see without a microscope, but their presence making itself known subtly. By the tenth day little leaves were obvious. And they were everywhere.

She took to spending the early evening on her porch where she could see the garden. She’d watch as squirrels tried every space they could think to try and get in, thwarted by the chicken wire all around. She’d watch as birds sat on the poles, pecking at the netting wondering how they’d get in, unable to. She felt some triumph, some vindication. Her crops would be safe from these free loaders.

As the days turned to weeks and the weeks turned to months her garden grew. There was so much green! And red and yellow and purple and orange. The rainbow of her garden delighted her and she couldn’t wait to begin to taste the bounty it promised. Only after two months there was still nothing quite the right size and color to pick. Everything grew a bit stunted, a bit off. By the third month it was obvious that something was really very wrong. Her corn wasn’t as tall as it should be and the ears were no larger than her hand. The squash had flowered beautifully but the nubs growing from the vines were smaller than pickles.

Her disappointment in the garden returned. Looking at it from the porch she realized how orderly, and ugly it was. She watched as the birds sat on the poles, unable to get in, and she was saddened. She watched as the butterflies flew into the netting, unable to get through, and flew away and she was embittered. Even the parts of the garden that had been done right were clearly all wrong.

By autumn she was able to claim that she’d grown ten beautiful pea pods, five delicious cherry tomatoes, and one somewhat acceptable zucchini. The garden would come down. Perhaps she could still salvage the beds, but the posts and the netting and dreariness of the garden must be removed.

Winter came and took care of the netting for her. The snows were heavy and wet, so wet that it stuck to the netting, weighing it down, unable to slip through and land on the garden below. It was really quite beautiful to see this large space completely untouched by white. Until about the third day or so when the netting finally succumbed to the pressure.

The giant posts remained and she’d decided to leave them and use them to her advantage. In February, the time for planting peas, she placed seeds all around the base of each post. They would prove perfect for climbing peas in spring and climbing beans in summer.

~~~That’s one hour~~~

The fridge was buzzing…again. That high pitched drone that completely disappeared when you got close enough to shake it, rendering the shaking of it unnecessary. But the minute you walked away…. It was going to be the death of her.

Sometimes she’d shake it anyway. Shake it, shake it, shake it. And of course it wasn’t making the buzzing while she was standing there so she’d begin to walk away and just as she was thinking, “finally! I finally got it!” the buzzing would start again. Sometimes she’d shift it just a smidge to the right and it would stop. “Vindication!” she’d think, only to walk away and hear it brrrp-brrrp-brrrp and buzz all over again. So, obviously, she’d shift it a little to the left. That never helped.

Repairmen came and went all saying the same thing: everything’s clean, nothing’s out of order or out of place, perhaps moving items around inside would help.

Fat lot of good repairmen are.

The buzzing would sometimes begin to escalate and make wha-wha-wha sounds and the distraction of it was just maddening. She couldn’t read a book, watch television, scroll through the internet on her phone. Anything she tried to do she’d realize she wasn’t actually doing because she was really listening to the fridge.

She’d finally be down the hall in her room, in bed, asleep, desperate for an hour or two in between insomniac moments, and the next thing she’d know she was awake. Why was she awake? This wasn’t her insomnia, this was something else, something had woken her. What?

The damn fridge.

She thought about unplugging it at night. If there was no one around to open the doors the food would remain cold til morning at which point she could plug it back in. And why not? Perfect solution to the unsolvable problem. Only unplugging it required moving the beast out far enough that she could reach the plug. And plugging it back in required moving it out even further so she could pick the plug up off the floor and get between the fridge and the wall and the cabinet and re-plug it in. It was a different kind of nightmare that plug.

Plus the moving of the fridge was bound to destroy the floor. It was only a matter of time. Moving a fridge back and forth and not expecting it to wear grooves into the floor or tear the floor completely, that was foolish. And she didn’t want to have to replace the perfectly adequate flooring in her kitchen just because her damn fridge didn’t work properly.

The only other thing that would work would be removing everything. Literally everything. If there was nothing in the fridge or freezer the damn thing was quiet. So very wonderfully quiet. Maybe she could just eat out of boxes and cans. Boxes, cans, and the kind of fresh fruit she could keep on the counter. Never buy anything that required refrigeration. Never bring home leftovers. Never use condiments at home. Never drink anything cold or have a pint of ice cream for one of “those days.”

If friends came over she’d simply warn them before hand that all she had was a little handheld cooler with ice for drinks or something. She’d just have to remember to buy a little handheld cooler. And buy ice. How hard could that be? Remembering to buy ice on the rare occasions her friends came to her house instead of meeting somewhere or going to someone else’s house. Easy.

She could do it. Live without a fridge. She was sure of it. What did they do in the old days before electricity anyway? She’d read about it somewhere…oh, right, they had those beautiful wooden boxes. Freezer boxes? She couldn’t remember what they were called, but that sounded right. She’d get one of those. Only they required a big block of ice. How often? Wouldn’t that make a terrible mess as the ice melted? Why did they make them out of wood anyway, wouldn’t the melting ice ruin the wood? Maybe it was best if she just made do with nothing.

Winters were cold enough she could leave some things out on the porch. Summers she’d just do without. It would be worth it if she could sleep. Worth it if she could hear herself think. Worth it if it meant never having to hear another repairman tell her to shift the contents around.

“Or you could just buy a new fridge,” her friend offered.

~~~That’s one hour~~~

When I was growing up there weren’t all these rules as you have today. You shoulda seen the things we got away with, you wouldn’t believe it now. But that don’t mean nothin’ really. It wasn’t any better or worse then than it is now. Don’t let anybody fool you with all that nostalgia crap. It seems every generation is destined to see things as better “back then” and no generation is open to seeing it as pretty great “right now.” Maybe we’re just programmed that way as humans. Maybe things always seem better when you didn’t have to live through them. Maybe we only remember the good stuff so only the good stuff gets passed on and remembered.

It’s hard to believe anyone looking back on World War I or The Great Depression as “good ole days.” But they will. They won’t call it WWI, but they’ll be pointin’ to the early 1900’s and waxin’ poetic. Ain’t nothin’ poetic about war, famine, rationin’, food lines, gas lines, children workin’ in factories, none of it. But these are the same people who blame the time change on farmers.

What do these people even know anyway. How can you possibly think the farmers are responsible for the time movin’ back or forth. I mean really. When have farmers ever been given an ear by anyone in any space of power. And these people think they’re responsible for the movements of time. Please. Now honey, you wanna know about time change you gotta think money. We are in the United States after all, ain’t nothin’ happenin’ around here if it ain’t for money. Money and time, time and money. That’s what oughta be printed on the bills, cause you better believe it ain’t got nothin’ to do with God or trust.

What were we talkin’ about? Oh right, growin’ up and life and stuff. Well, lemme just say I feel sorry for the way these kids are growin’ up. They don’t walk anywhere anymore. They don’t spend time with they friends. I ask my great great grandbabies what they learnin’ in school and they can’t hardly tell me. Sound like they don’t rightly know they own selves. But they can tell me what time the bus comes and what time they get home and what time they favorite television show is on. That’s just sad, it is.

I couldn’t tell you the last time I watched television. I think it musta been back when I lived with your grandmama for awhile. They always watch so mucha that box. Seems they had it on all night and day, got to where you couldn’t tell if whatcha were watchin’ was real or not. Is this still the news or we watchin’ one a them stories. You ask me that’s one a the things wrong with people today, they still don’t know the difference. Is it true or is it a story, they almost seem like they don’t much care either way. Like it don’t much matter to them if it’s true or not so long’s they can play on they phone while it’s happenin’.

You don’t get nothin’ outta your life if all your life is spent on a phone. I can tell you that right now. I can see the value of ’em, sure. It would have been right nice to know where my kids was at on a summers day when I needed to run to the store for somethin’ but it wasn’t necessary. Back then I’d just run to the store. Maybe leave a note on the kitchen table case they came lookin’ for me. Like as not I wouldn’t have to go to the store at all. Just call out the back door for one a the kids to go for me or ask my neighbor for whatever it was I needed. I bet you don’t even know your neighbors name. Am I right.

It’s not just connection though, y’all are missin’ much more than that. You have all kinda connections too, don’t ya. You got the interweb accounts that let you see what everyone’s doing all the time, and that makes you feel connected. Right. It’s why they keep trying to teach us how to use the computers. They got these real small ones now you don’t have to plug in or anything, ain’t heavy at all, like a magazine just about. They keep tellin’ us that usin’ those things will let us keep in touch, just like television but with our families. Well, that ain’t no kinda connection I know. And sides that it don’t get you any closer to the point does it.

Everyone’s always askin’ for the secret, the purpose, the point of life. I heard some great theories, lemme tell ya, but none of ’em are right. Truth is the whole purpose of life is failure. You wanna fail at so many things you can’t even count, but you don’t want to fail at the same thing twice. And the thing is, after all that failure, at some point there’ll be a thing you don’t fail at. It’s statistically impossible to fail at everything. Trust me. So you just go on now, go out there and give it all ya got, as many times as it takes to fail at all the things you wanna try, and then you just let me know when you hit upon something you can’t seem to lose at.

~~~That’s one hour~~~

It was foggy that morning. The mist hung in the pine trees and the oaks, the manzanitas were completely obscured until you got close enough to see their red trunks and branches bleeding through the white bandage. They were following a deer trail. Well worn, lots of hoof prints from the larger stags hooves splayed a bit to the smallest fawns hoofs barely visible and looking like miniature hearts. Cupid signaling the way to a long love.

Daddy had told her to get up and come along. So she had. It wasn’t even first light, but she could tell by the way his arm brushed hers that he was wearing flannel and by the sound of his steps receding that he was in boots. And of course he’d be in jeans. Daddy always wore jeans. She remembered Mama chiding him about wearing those jeans to his own wedding and she’d laughed thinking it was a joke til Mama showed her pictures. Mama in the most beautiful dress she’d ever seen, long and white and tatted in a pattern she’d never have the patience to learn. And Daddy in button down shirt and jeans. She knew Mama wasn’t really upset about those jeans though, she could hear it in the tone of her chiding and the tilt of her lips that wasn’t quite smile. That was the tone and the tilt that meant you’d gotten away with whatever naughty thing you’d done cause Mama was secretly pleased you had the gumption.

Dressing as quietly as she could in the dark, shivering from the cold, clearly Daddy’d only just recently rebuilt the fire and the heat hadn’t made it’s way back to the bedrooms yet, she found her jeans from the day before thrown over her desk chair, found her flannel under the jeans, and her boots on the floor, the left one knocked over from when she’d accidentally kicked the chair in the dark on her way to bed last night. She hustled quietly out her door towards the kitchen not smelling anything but hoping Mama was up and making something warm.

The kitchen was cold and quiet. Whatever was happening it’d just be her and Daddy. That meant Daddy was planning on being back for breakfast. That man never missed sausages in the morning, nor coffee to boot. And if it was just her and Daddy that meant he’d already be under way, he’d have given her in his mind the time it took to pull on her clothes and then he’d have started off. Shoot. Her cold tummy would have to wait. Still keeping quiet but hurrying a bit more, her steps more like hops than shuffles she made her way out the back door and bounded off the porch.

Hitting the fog she stopped. Daddy wouldn’t leave her on her own in this. This was dangerous. People got confused in fog like this, fell off the bluff, walked into a coyote snare. She’d been told since she could remember that guns weren’t toys and fog wasn’t a dance partner. Her instinct was to turn around and return to the porch but she knew in fog like this turning around could get you lost. She steeled herself, looked down at her feet to see which way they were facing, then put one foot directly behind the other, backing up in a straight line til her boot thunked against the wooden stair. Only then did she turn and walk up the stairs to the porch and start looking around for Daddy.

He reached out a hand and tousled her hair clearly proud of her, then he reached down and took hold of her hand walking off the porch with her in tow. It would have been nice if her fear of the fog evaporated holding Daddy’s hand. She felt like it should have, if Daddy was here there should be nothing to fear, but she was old enough to know that even Daddy couldn’t save her from everything.

The deer trail led them to a meadow and it was here that Daddy stopped walking, crouched down, and gave a gentle tug on her arm signaling her to crouch down, too. The fog was beginning to lift a bit, still stuck in the trees like so much cotton candy, but no longer a curtain down to the ground. Looking out across the meadow she tried to see what it was they’d come to see. Daddy wouldn’t ever tell her what they were about on adventures like this, he always waited to see what she could intuit, what she could figure.

The first time they’d come out to the meadow it was spring. Still bitterly cold in the morning and stunningly beautiful in the evening. They’d come after breakfast, full bellies and the trail easy to follow. They’d sat down on plastic dish sleds they’d carried all that way so they’d be out of the mud. The wild grasses were just emerging but the bulbs had bloomed stunningly bright colors dotting the meadow everywhere she looked. She had assumed that’s why they were there: the bulbs. But it wasn’t so. Daddy wouldn’t say anything, but he didn’t shush her queries either. She soon got tired of guessing and sat quietly, enjoyed the beautiful flowers bouncing in the breeze, and the flutter of a butterfly on her left shoulder. And then another butterfly on her head. Turning to Daddy she saw three butterflies on his arm and one on his head, too. Turning back to the meadow she suddenly realized there were butterflies everywhere. Where had they all come from? The butterflies were emerging from their cocoons and it was one of the most beautiful things she’d ever seen.

Another time they’d come to the meadow in the darkest black of morning, earlier than she’d ever been awake. The kind of dark night that only comes when your sixty miles from the nearest city with no moon to speak of and knocking on 2 a.m.’s door. She’d stumbled out after Daddy more than walked. When they arrived at the meadow, grasses dry and crackling under their weight and the lack of water the end of summer always wrought, she nearly collapsed on her back when she saw Daddy lay down. She was all ready to fall right back to sleep if her heart would slow when she looked up and had a moment of panic. She was going to drift away if she didn’t hold on to the meadow, she was going to drift away into the impossibility of all those stars. And then lightning streaked across the sky and she caught her breath. It happened again! But there were no clouds, how could it be? She was beginning to think she’d imagined it when it happened again, and again! Later that morning over sausages and eggs and toast and Mama’s homemade, she learned about meteors and they sparked a whole new passion in her. She checked out everything her library had on space and worked with the librarian to check out everything the other libraries around had on space. For weeks her life was reading, returning, checking out, reading, returning. Until one day the books she opened no longer gave her new information.

And now here they were again. She searched the meadow for a clue, knew the sky couldn’t be seen, finally looked to Daddy to see where he was looking. A bit ahead and a little to the right, not twelve on the meadow clock but not one either. She strained her eyes to see.

~~~That’s one hour~~~

She bought the house because it had turquoise trim, it was almost one hundred years old and had original hardwood floors, and the neighbors on either side were clearly super liberal. She would be safe here. She bought the house because it needed work. So much work. The house would cost roughly two years worth of paychecks to fix, assuming she didn’t touch her savings or go for a loan. The work would save her.

The day she closed escrow was a Thursday. She’d anticipated the close and taken Thursday and Friday off work. Waking at 6 am out of habit and excitement, she had some time to kill before her 9 am meet up with the realtor to get her new keys. Her first stop was coffee. She should probably give up drive thru coffee, it was so expensive and not any better than what she could make herself at home, but it would be her last luxury, she told herself as she took her place in the line of cars and rummaged through her purse for her cards.

Coffee in hand, or rather in her cars cup holder, she proceeded to her second stop. Arriving at the home improvement big box store she grabbed her list from her purse, her coffee from her cup holder, her keys from the ignition, and walked inside. It felt so amazing to be in jeans on a work day. She couldn’t help the bounce in her step or the excitement mixed with fear she felt as she grabbed a cart and turned left toward the cleaning supplies.

She would need loads of wood floor cleaner and the right sort of mop for the job, something good to scrub all the wood paneling with too, and those giant trash bags definitely some of those. Didn’t they sell a giant pack of cleaning rags, cause that would fit the bill. And some generic all purpose cleanser, at least a gallon. Window cleaner, check. Paper towels, check. A thick face mask for when she pulled up that carpet. A good pair of gloves for pulling those weeds. And last, but not least, and certainly the most exciting part, new door handles and locks for the outside doors: front, garage, and side.

She spent quite a bit of time perusing the handles. Choosing the right front door handle was important. This house would be celebrating it’s centennial birthday in a few years and deserved to have a handle that fit that status. No silly newfangled electronic thing or plain round knob. The house deserved an elegant handle. And she finally found the right one. It was copper, which would tarnish with age to a lovely turquoise to match the trim she intended to re-paint but keep. It had scroll work and a Victorian look to it, perfect.

Before leaving, she checked on inside paint colors and grabbed a few samples cards. The wood paneling was awful but removing it would be too expensive and dirty, and it would delay her move-in. She’d been scouring the internet for weeks to see what paneling looked like painted and had found scads of beautiful results. She knew she wanted everything in the house to be bright and cheerful, especially since she was leaving the original wood floors, the wood beam ceiling, and several of the built-ins in all their natural wooden splendor. The painted paneling would help offset all that brown, help make it pop.

With her car loaded up, she made her way to the house. She was still a little early but she figured she’d just sit and commune with the home, enjoy the morning sounds of the neighborhood, get a feel for her future. There was no street parking but she didn’t care, she wanted to pull into her driveway anyway. Hers. This was hers now. Exiting the car to walk around it and stand in front of the house she suddenly froze. The enormity of what she’d just done hit her. She’d bought a house. A house that needed a ton of work. A ton of money. What was she thinking? She’d never restored a house before? She didn’t know the first thing about…anything.

Sinking to the concrete she sat. Staring.

She had planned to lose herself in the work. When you have to clean and scrub and scour and prepare for painting you have nowhere to be but inside your head. Sure you can turn on music to help the time pass and make it a bit more fun, but after the third or fourth hour, after the first and second breaks to pee or grab lunch…at some point you realize the music is on and you’re not hearing it. You’re listening to yourself for maybe the first time in ages. She’d counted on that.

She wanted to fix the house up, sure, but in return the house was going to help her fix herself. The house would force her to exercise. The house would force her to listen to her own thoughts as she pulled weeds for the third hour in a row, or scrubbed the paneling of yet another wall, or pulled up that nasty carpet in the bedroom. The house would be her therapy. Isn’t that how it works in the movies? You start a project that’s too big for you, you find yourself during the work, and by the time it’s all done you have something you absolutely love and you’ve also managed to find love within yourself and somehow magically outside of yourself too, because Mr. Right always makes an appearance. She’d counted on all that.

Her realtor arrived, chirping with the thrill of a house sold and another satisfied client. It wasn’t til their eyes met that the realtor realized something was wrong. Taking the tack that sitting down might be appropriate, she criss-cross-applesauced her way to the cold cement and stared up at the house.

“Did you ever do something you maybe shouldn’t have?”

“All the time. It’s important to scare yourself at least once a day…someone famous said something like that anyway.”

“I think I’m in over my head.”

“Then you’re right where you need to be.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes. The birds were calling in the trees all around and it felt a bit like spring even though it was still the middle of winter.

“Are you going to keep the turquoise?”

“Definitely.”

“Good. I like it, too.” After a beat she asked, “ready for your keys?”

~~~That’s one hour~~~

“It’s time,” she said to herself, “there are far too many roosters; they’re attacking each other, eating too much feed, costing me money. It’s time.”

She dressed in her old torn and stained jeans, the t-shirt that wasn’t good for much more than being cut up into rags, and a pair of rubber boots. She drank what was left of her coffee, cold now and a bit crunchy with some grounds that’d snuck through the screen of her French press (this might be the country, but good coffee knows no class). Rinsing the mug and setting it in the drainboard she headed down the stairs and out the door.

She walked through the pasture toward the coop. There was a stump of oak in the ground from when the oak beetle had decimated her favorite tree. That stump had been eyeing her for weeks. Calling out to her. Whispering to her. She knew it was perfect for the chore at hand. Knew the minute the tree was felled and the stump appeared. With the rest of the tree cleared away and smoldering under a tarp a few feet away, there was nothing left but to make use of the stump. No other chores to distract her from the task at hand.

It was cruel to leave the roosters this long. It was no kindness making them live for her squeamishness, letting them peck and scratch and attack one another, spilling one another’s blood so she wouldn’t have to. It was time.

She found the ax out behind the barn, leaning casually against it, waiting right where she’d left it after cutting up the oak. The ax normally lived inside the barn, a little tool and tack room that protected the ax from the elements. But she’d been tired the other day, finished with the oak, preparing for the roosters. So tired. Too tired to put it away properly. Plus, she figured the roosters might see her with it and know what was coming. She didn’t want to spoil the meat. She didn’t want their last few days to be spent in fear.

Although how could a creature fear a thing it’d never seen before? She’d read a thing once, or did she hear it on the radio? She wasn’t quite sure. Anyway, it was all about how human babies who have never seen a snake or been warned about them can see the squiggle of a snake and are immediately afraid. Dern things have never seen a snake in their short little baby lives, but you show ’em a snake squiggle and they cry and cry for their mamas. Ever since she learned about that she’s taken more caution with things.

Walking the ax out to the stump she dropped it down in the weeds and mimed the actions to come: if she walked up to the stump this way with a rooster in her left hand, she could hold it down like this and…oh. There weren’t any nails in the stump yet. She’d forgotten that part. Leaving the ax in the weeds she went back to the barn and this time entered the tool room rifling around for a hammer and a couple of nails. Finding what she needed she headed back out to the stump.

Once again standing before the stump, she figured about where she’d need their necks and hence about where they’d need their heads. She drove the nails into the stump in a “v” formation. Once again she mimed out the process: she’d walk up to the stump this way with a rooster in her left hand, she could hold it down like this, slip it’s head into the “v”, pull the body back a bit to straighten the neck, then grab the ax with her right hand, like so, holding the body with her left hand like so, then a quick downward motion with her right arm, and… the stump didn’t move a bit as the ax hit it but the air resonated with the thunk.

She tried not to shudder. She could do this. She had to do this. “It’s time,” she said aloud.

Walking back to the coop she saw two of the roosters attacking one another, wings outstretched, leaning backwards, dancing on their toes. It could have been a mating dance if it weren’t for the sounds they were emitting and the occasional jump, dive, slash movements they did with their spurs. It would have been funny, two ridiculous animals fighting over nothing (she’d moved all the hens to a chicken tractor when the roosters became old enough to be a nuisance to them), if it weren’t for the blood they drew, the eye they occasionally removed, and the brutalization of the losers body that sometimes occurred afterwards.

She opened the gate to step into the coop and the parade of roosters watching the fight ignored her. The sparring partners ignored her. She knew it was mean to let them continue, but it was also the best way to keep the gawkers from flapping around like crazy as she tried to catch them. She quickly and without hesitation grabbed the rooster closest to her around the neck and swept him up into the crook of her left arm. Nobody stirred except the two roosters on either side of the gap she’d just created; they shuffled a little bit, closing the gap, eyes still locked on the two roosters intent on killing each other.

Exiting the coop she wondered why anyone would ever pay to watch such a thing. Her right hand still around the roosters neck and her left arm cradling his body, she cooed down to him hoping to keep him calm. It was no use, of course. His heartbeat had been wild from watching the fight, she felt it the moment he was in her arms. It hadn’t gotten faster since she nabbed him, but it hadn’t slowed since the scenery changed either.

She wondered how badly the meat would be affected by the fighting going on today. Was it even worth it to butcher these creatures today? If not today, when? Tomorrow would be another day of fighting, and the day after that. Plus, she could only butcher so many birds in a day and she had to kill all twenty. Or did she?

She had planned on keeping one rooster. She liked hearing their crowing throughout the day. Most people thought a rooster only crowed in the morning but it wasn’t so. The roosters crowed all throughout the day, several times a day. In fact, a week ago there’d been a full moon the likes of which she’d never seen in her forty years. It’d been so bright and so clear that the roosters had taken to crowing much of the night, too. That night she’d decided she didn’t need to keep a rooster.

Still. Maybe just one rooster.

That left nineteen to kill, gut, pluck, bag, and freeze. That was more than she could get through herself in a day. She thought she could probably get through ten on her own in a day…maybe twelve. She liked the idea of getting through more on the first day so she’d have less the second day. A mini-reward on day two, the reward of having to do less. If she kept one and killed twelve today, she’d only have to get through seven tomorrow. It would still be a full days work, but not quite so full as today.

Quick as she could she held the rooster down on the stump, stretching his neck a bit to get his head on the other side of the “v.” Quick as she could she raised the ax and brought it down hard. The thunk sounded more like a shlunk this time and the echo was a bit muted.

~~~That’s an hour~~~

It wasn’t that she never knew when men were hitting on her, it’s that she only knew when she was also interested in them. When she wasn’t the least bit interested in a man she had no idea he was flirting with her, and was always taken aback when they asked her out. “On a date?” she’d say, surprised. And if that shocked reaction wasn’t enough to cool their jets, she’d give them a try. Why not? She was young, single, and had no idea what she wanted out of life. Maybe these men could help her find the answer.

For some women dating a cop is a turn on. Something about uniforms and guns and power. The whole thing made her shudder. So when she was pulled over she rolled down her windows and tried to keep her anxiety in check.

“Do you know why I pulled you over?” the officer asked.

She shrugged and said, “I figure I have a taillight out or something cause I know I wasn’t speeding.”

“License plate.”

She stared at him blankly, “License plate?” she repeated.

“It is illegal to set your plate in the window. You have to install it on the vehicle.”

“Really?” her eyebrows shot up in surprise. It had never occurred to her that such a thing would matter. If they can see it through the window what’s the difference.

“Is there a reason the plate isn’t installed?” the officer asked.

“I don’t own any tools,” she replied truthfully.

The officer laughed. “Alright, well I won’t write you up for this if you promise to get it installed today.”

“I promise. But not sure how I’ll fulfill it.”

“Head down to that auto shop two blocks ahead. They’ll have a screwdriver you can borrow.”

“All I need is a screwdriver? Huh, I thought it would be some wrench type thing,” she said.

The officer laughed again, patted her truck, and walked away with a “have a nice day” thrown over his shoulder.

She made good on her promise and just like the officer had said the auto shop was happy to install her plate for her, although they too laughed at the situation. The mechanic who installed it was at least ten years older than she was and once again a surprised “on a date?” was escaping her lips by the time he was finishing up. The man blushed and didn’t push it, so she went on her way with her social calendar unedited.

It was later that night at a local bar that she ran into the officer again. Out of uniform it took her a moment to place him. He knew her immediately, however, and asked her to dance. They were out there two minutes later with him pulling her in closer when she reached for his waist and felt his gun. She froze. He laughed, told her it was fine, the safety was on, he was required to carry it at all times. And that was that. She made an excuse to go to the restroom but snuck out through the kitchen claiming there was a man who wouldn’t stop harassing her and she needed help getting out so he wouldn’t see. She never went to that bar again.

It wasn’t long before she’d found someone to flirt with who was flirting back. It wasn’t long before the flirting became a little less general, a bit more focused. It wasn’t long before the flirting was a deep abiding attraction, the conversation devoid of banter and full of the present and the future. It wasn’t long before she’d found someone she wanted out of life. So when he didn’t ask her out she was a bit shocked. A bit taken aback. After drawing out the night as long as she possibly could she finally had to concede that this man was going to go home, without her, and without a plan for a future date.

Standing with him at his car, a position she’d never been in before, she finally asked, “so when are you going to take me out?”

“On a date?” he asked, smiling.

“Well, I dunno…” she kind of mumbled, shy and embarrassed for the first time.

“I kind of thought we were past the dating part, but if you need me to ask you I will.”

She was silent, thinking about this. Did she need a date? Were they past the dating part after only five hours of drinking and talking? Before she could reply he stepped towards her, lifted her face towards his, and smiled.

“I’ll kiss you when you’re sure. I’ll be here again tomorrow night if you need a date.”

He let go of her face, stepped back, and got into his truck. She was just standing there. She couldn’t think to move. Her arms and hands hung limply by her side. What was happening to her? She watched as he put the key in the ignition and started it up. She watched as he looked out at her again, “probably thinking what a weirdo I am,” she thought, as he drove slowly away.

Here, or rather there, was a man who maybe knew what she wanted out of life better than she knew herself. Had she wanted him to kiss her? Definitely, in the way of all things curious. But also, no. She wanted to savor the evening and think of him with butterflies and look forward to tomorrow. A kiss might have ruined all that anticipation. And he seemed to know that.

But “I’ll be here tomorrow” wasn’t any kind of date she’d ever heard of. And yet she found she liked the idea of that much better. There wasn’t any pressure or expectation. It was something she’d say to a friend. And yet he’d made it clear that he thought of her in more than a friendly way, he was simply waiting for her to decide what she wanted.

How very thoughtful. How very gentlemanly. How very unexpected.

She realized she absolutely did not need a date. She’d never needed to date. She needed this, right here. This understanding that had occurred between them. This acceptance that she was in control of what she wanted, even if he knew what it was. She would be there tomorrow. Not for a date. For the continuation of this way of being with someone. She wanted more. She very much wanted this man who knew how to help her find her answer, not by telling her when he knew it, but by giving her the space to hear it.

~~~That’s one hour~~~