There’s a story written in a standardized test we all had to take, which we read year after year. I’m certain they’re still printing it, pushing at as the example question. Before blindly filling in C as the answer (that’s been the answer as long as we can remember), there’s a pause. We’re left with two assumptions: either the test writers are a rare thing, or more intelligently, this example is used as a guide to gage performance and improvement. We’ll fill in C and ignore that concern, continuing. The story, though, is what I’m thinking about. There’s a thunderstorm rolling up, and we’re waiting impatiently.
We’re standing, leaning more like, against a tall beam at the doorway to an old house in the middle of a desert, with a single road that disappears quietly to the north. The paint is chipping, but it doesn’t stick to our clothing because it hasn’t rained for some time. There’s a bench on which someone in the family, an unpleasant uncle perhaps, smokes once a year. We don’t bother sitting on it, though. We’re quite busy waiting.
One thing is clear at this point: we weren’t awaiting this thunder storm. As the gray mass begins to climb impossibly higher, we make a quick mental revision of that thought. Though, it hasn’t rained in some time, and the desert yearns for a deep drink, the character of this oncoming behemoth doesn’t change, nor does its reception. Thunder storm, being much to descriptive and conveying, is corrected simply to storm. The menace of the storm is thickly cursed; no creature awaits it without some protection.
Anyone sensible enough would have, by this point, retreated indoors. We furrow our eyebrows to shield them from the flying dust, as that thought occurs to us. A fly nervously lands on our arm, and as we brush that undeniable thought away, we are grateful for the excuse to move. Stoney silence has a purpose for us; we’re waiting for a brother. Our gaze flickers to the north, hoping for an end.
No one has any idea who this brother is. He is supposed to drive a battered red truck, the kind that once shone beautifully in its youth. Neither we nor our brother are old enough to see things we owned as old, so it’s clearly second hand. We imagine him to wear a similar flannel shirt and jeans, not old, just well used. His voice is foreign, a memory floating in the back of our head. His touch was rough, hands cold. We don’t even call him our brother, to us, he’s just Frank. He’s out in the storm, coming home, though, and although it would be the polite thing to do, we couldn’t feign concern even if we wanted to. We’re waiting.
The storm rolls in, he’s not here, and we’re still waiting.
