Superficial

By James Marshall

Brief glimpses through the film of life. A layered look at the world from the eye of the beholder. Clouded, conflicted, translucent to its murky depths.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Marshall
• Release date: Mar 12, 2012

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JAMES MARSHALL

Superficial

Copyright © 2012 by James Marshall

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real people, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Smashwords Edition March 2012

Contents

A Trip to Remember

To Each His Own

Midweek

Superficial

Hard Times

A Lack of Indifference

A Trip to Remember

The deputy slowed his car crossing the bridge and stopped in the middle. Foot still on the brake pedal, he hesitated to get out for one last look then decided against it. He wondered at all the oddities flying rapidly along in the growing stream, swirling against back eddies like buzzards hovering on updrafts in lazy contemplation of carrion below. He turned his head quickly away and stomped the gas as the river lapped over the road deck again.

The first farm where the Swifts had lived for a hundred and ten years was nothing but charred ruins now. Burned for spite like so many others, the gates wide open, the pump house the only thing left standing. Everyone was gone now. The deputy thought of Maryanne Swift and Robert her brother, watching the centerline of the road out of the corner of his eye. His gaze stuck to the fields alongside as memories from a long time ago blurred by. His car slowed involuntarily to recollections of youth and harvests, the cold winters and hard times that came from hot dry summers when no crops were made. The barn was gone now too, the hay and Maryanne and sweet promise that slipped away never to be fulfilled or forgotten. His eyes were glued to woods and laughter, fresh cider, hide and seek between the rows of dried corn stalks, garter snakes, and new puppies, Christmas reunions with second cousins and old aunts he never liked or understood how their shared relations intertwined. His eyes were stuck to the side of the road slowly watching the storied past blur by where woods took over between neighboring fields or he never would have noticed the old man.

The dark blue lump never would have caught a city boy’s eye or even his own if he had been safely watching the road ahead like good drivers should. A farmer’s overalls, rump in the air, a familiar sight around here from earlier times was too out of place now. The deputy hit the brake as the old man sprang up, his yellow straw hat defining his scrawny frame like a lost picture from the past. Looking out incredulously toward the passing motorist, so rare these days, his mouth hung a little agape.

The deputy stopped the car and set the brake. The old man put down his paint brush on top of the bucket, wiped his fingers on his overall’s leg then wiped his mouth with the back of the same hand as if there was something there more than nervous confusion. The deputy looked at the crude sign the old man had painted. It stood out in strange proportion in odd contrast to the huge one beside it proclaiming in professional letters FOR SALE 35 Acres, L.A. Andersen & Ass. Green splotches of fresh tractor paint obliterated something along the bottom, the same color matching the smaller sign the old farmer had just finished himself. 4 Sell. A crude arrow beneath pointed to the right in the direction of an old house set back from the road beyond the scrub, its own paint worn down to ugly grey boards, the tin roof rusted out to a rich burgundy.

The deputy got out and pulled his pants up by the belt. The holstered revolver and hand cuffs came up with it to sit a little higher and more comfortably nearer his waist, well below the belly. He coughed authoritatively into his fist to test his voice, giving the old man time to