Living With Darkness

Her heartbeat stopped for a moment. “Joe? Is that you?” The faint shadow quickly moved away.

As the sun was getting low, Nina was tired enough to let it rest. For the past seven months, she has been slaving herself as much as she could. She has to because of the rough nature of winters in the mountains. If she doesn’t complete harvesting before then, she and her infant child might have to starve.

The plane crash last year claimed the life of her husband and her twelve-year-old son, all she has left now is her infant daughter, cat, and her chickens. The whole farmhouse is empty of life.

On that godforsaken day, Oliver, her husband was about to spread pesticide from their harvester Cessna. Along with their child joe, he got up on the plane. As she was waving and wishing them luck, Oliver calmly took off.

As she had to prepare lunch for the whole family, she went on to the kitchen. She always liked to plan things out when cooking. That morning she was thinking about where they were going to send Joe to school this year. When suddenly she heard the sound of exploding something nearby. As she ran towards outside, just from the door, she could see, the Cessna while leaving a fat trail of smoke was falling from the sky like a shooting star. And then it crashed on their big cornfield.

That was the end of her happy life. They were struggling with money from the very start of their marriage. Oliver gambled and took out a big loan and with that year’s harvest, he could’ve paid it all away. But his death was the end of Nina’s dreams that she cherished throughout her whole life.

A few days later the debt collectors came. And the bank took everything away.

The manager was always kind towards them. Always feeding something to the kids whenever they went to his office. When the bank was taking everything, she went to him.

“Harry, how am I going to feed Lucy now?”

With desperation pouring out off of her face, she asked while holding the door.

“Sit Nina, you don’t have to speak while standing there” “I am practically your family. We’ll sort something out”

Harry helped her with everything from then. Somehow he managed to let them keep the house. And then he helped them with groceries and everything. On weekends, he would spend almost the whole day there. As time passed, he started trying to become something more.

One day at noon, harry suddenly appeared in the house, at that time he usually worked at the bank.
“Hey Harry, what a pleasant surprise. Shouldn’t you be in your office?”

“I took some time off. It was missing Lucy. Hey baby!”He started caressing the baby while Nina was still holding her.

And then he slowly started to move his hands towards her.

“What are you doing Harry?”

“Don’t you think it’s time? For us to take it to the next stage?”

“What are you saying? Are you out of your mind? Get your hands off of me.”

Harry started using force, trying to pull her closer. Fearing she would drop Lucy, she couldn’t resist much. But then she had had enough. With all the force in her thin body, she kicked him in his groin.

After that day, harry never came back. So to move forward with life and escape from all the memories, She sold the house and came here, in the mountains, the prairie of nowhere.

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To be continued...

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