Emmetsburg: The End

Blue sky overwhelmed the rolling farms and small painted banks of woods as John turned his truck onto the county road south from town. The road ran straight to Mallard through the sweet oblivion of the Iowa landscape as a ribbon of dusty white gold. The storm left the world reaffirmed for its passing. Bright green trees glistened in the folds. The world was as perfect as a painting. Even a flock of geese, moving in from the east seemed part of some earthly ballet, each movement precise and choreographed.

John pushed the clutched down hard with his left foot and wiggled the gear shift until it caught with a crunch and the old Ford lurched forward a bit.. The emptiness of the road lent itself perfectly to deeper thoughts, and John indulged them fully. 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. John 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 the small bridge fording the creek. It appeared precisely as it had in his dream. The trees and shadows all but hid the creek from view. In glimpses John could see that the storm had fattened the creek. Water 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 was sure he'd caught a glimpse of something hidden among the shadows.

John forced himself not to look. He told himself he wouldn’t stop, He told himself it had merely been a dream, but little more than a quarter mile from the creek John turned around and went back to the bridge. He sat there for a time, his convincing himself of the foolishness of all this. Still, he climbed from the truck and crossed the road. Each step felt immensely heavy. The blood ran cold as he climbed down the embankment and peered into the churning creek…


THE END