Nonfiction, Gina Gidaro
It’s just the two of us, sitting on the porch swing, bathed in sunlight during the fifth week of summer. It’s just the two of us and it really feels that way because no one is coming in and out of the house and my sister is lounging with her legs stretched long. There are cows mooing across the field and neighboring horses galloping through their grassy landscape. Every couple of minutes my sister turns the page of her book, the one about the girl who loves Shakespeare. Her big round eyes survey the page in wonder, while my book lay open in my lap.
A loud machine starts at the end of the field that resides in front of our house. It’s a giant, black and green tractor that makes a loud mechanical noise as it pulls itself across the empty field. One of our many cats goes flying passed the front of the porch, startled by the monstrous growl of the machine. She races up the steps and settles herself in a protected spot on the swing between me and my sister.
“Is it bean or corn this year?” I ask my sister, who hasn’t glanced away from her book.
“I think it’s corn,” she answers distantly.
These are the dog days, I realize. The days that seem so simple and utterly forgettable. These are the days I’ll end up missing the most when the era of missing rolls around. When the sweet smell of corn has become distant to my nose, when the calm hum of nearby hummingbirds, and the mooing of faraway cows have disappeared from my ears.
My sister laughs at something in her book and then flips the page, the page much thinner than the weight of the words printed on it. The sound is like wind rustling through leaves. I watch her laugh until she tells me the joke and then we are both laughing in the warm sun, while the corn finds its home within the Earth and the words of someone else’s story lay sprawled in our laps.
Gina Gidaro has a bachelor’s degree in creative writing and a minor in studio art from Ohio University. She received a graduate certificate from the Denver Publishing Institute and is a volunteer reader for CARVE Magazine and Autumn House Press, and is an editor for the Outlander Zine and Divinations Magazine. She’s passionate about stories, playing guitar, and anything spooky. More of her information can be found at https://ginagidaro.wordpress.com