Water, Wasted by Alex Branson

Author:Alex Branson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rare Bird Books
Published: 2020-10-27T01:04:58+00:00

The soil at the top of the ridge was slick and clay-like. Barrett stepped tentatively, feeling his large boot getting caked in soil pretty quickly. Barrett was staring up, at about the eight-foot mark, evaluating all the skinny oaks that bordered the hill. He only had to take a few steps before noticing one was snapped very high up, at about the nine- or ten-foot mark, and the upper trunk of the tree was leaning from the snap all the way down to the disturbed clay soil below, pointing westward toward Barrett. Barrett shambled over hurriedly, his black medical boot caked in muddy clay now, and he stared at the trunk, both powerfully snapped and delicately laid down on the ground.

“Well,” Barrett said to no one.

He looked at the break. It seemed so clean, so effortless, like if Barrett had snapped a twig on the ground. His vision slowly clambered downward as he heard a low, infrequent buzzing, and on the ground he saw a few flies circling what was easily the biggest shit he had ever seen in his life. Right next to the huge pile of shit, Barrett saw a clump of hair, what appeared to be a large toenail, and an enormous footprint.

“Good lord,” Barrett said, “this seems like a freebie.”

Barrett suddenly scanned around nervously.

“Who’s there?” he yelled. “What kind of prank shit is this? I’m not falling for it.”

He saw nothing and was answered only by the sound of cars rolling down the highway in the distance. From the snap and the shit pile, Barrett had a crystal-clear view of the town of Armin over the river. People seemed to be parking their cars, talking in front of shops. He saw old, overweight men carrying in cases of produce into small, riverside restaurants. He saw a woman walking down the sidewalk with a coffee. It could have been Amelia, he couldn’t tell. She was blonde and in sunglasses, but it was far, and Barrett hadn’t slept in a while. There was a family that had just unloaded out of a minivan at a park by the dock and the kids were throwing rocks in the river. The day was blooming in front of him. It was a real town full of real people. Just people living their lives.

Barrett picked up a smaller stick and started poking through the Bigfoot shit. Whoever this Bigfoot guy was, he ate a lot of corn.

•••

Emery woke up to a buzzing sound that he couldn’t immediately place. He shifted in his recliner to check under his own ass, feeling out the chair with his palm. He placed his hand in the crease in the cushion by his right hip and heard something hit the floor. The buzzing resumed on the floor. Emery slapped the recliner shut and rocked back and forth three times, building up the momentum to get out of the chair. Once on his feet, he slowly turned back toward the chair, placed his hands on the armrests, and got down on his knees.

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