EMMETSBURG: Nine

The emptiness of the road lent itself perfectly to deeper thoughts, and John indulged them fully. Where had life gone off to, John wondered, his brow furling unconsciously. Not as though he had wasted or squandered it in any way. He had lived life the best he could, and within his means, which weren’t much. There were no regrets over not living someone else’s life, because he didn’t know those lives. He knew the one he had and that was more than enough to worry about.

Sure he might have wished more for Anna, but more is an un-ending word. More doesn’t take stock of blessings. More is blind, and consumes without conscience and without end. With Anna, John could never have wished for more, nor would it ever have sufficed. He knew, however, that a day would come when their life together would come to an end, and knew on that day he would wish for more.

He topped a small bridge fording a creek. The trees and shadows all but hid the creek from view. In glimpses John could see that the storm had fattened the creek. It thundered across empty fields and rushed in muddy brown torrents, licking at the bottom of a bridge that should have cleared it easily. To the right tightly clustered trees clustered to the steep banks, obscuring much in midnight blue shadow. He thought for a moment he'd caught a glimpse of something down in the creek, but it was gone as he settled down from the other side of the bridge.

John looked off to the left where it spilled out and ran among the deep troughs of freshly plowed brown fields. The flood's swift tentacles mirrored the cerulean sky. He passed over quickly, giving any of it little more than a passing thought. There was nothing to the scene that seemed at all out of place.