Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Dennis writes in his notebook, his mind replaying last night over and over again. Though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. He scratches his cheek mindlessly, wincing when the pain blossoms once more. He tries to look out the window, but flinches as he gets an eyeful of the sun. His headache blossoms again. He tries not to remember the feeling of an elbow in his temple.
His chair squeaks loudly, and his hand comes down hard on the school desk. Bored, judging eyes turn to stare at him.
The teacher puts a hand on her hip, tapping the board behind her.
"Protein synthesis. What's the first step?"
Dennis swallows loudly, thumb rubbing his inner wrist roughly. His eyes dart around the room, quickly landing on his paper and then the board again.
"Transaction?" A girl next to him chimes in. Dennis peers wide-eyed at her half-raised hand, leg kicked out in front of her desk.
"That is correct. Please wait to be called next time."
Dennis sinks into his seat, sighing deeply. The girl is unbothered by the advice, writing quickly in her notes. It's sunny out today, so bright it shines off the girl's dark black hair like a pool of oil. She has a shiny earring and a black necklace that seems too tight.
She also has the prettiest face Dennis has ever seen.
She glances up, locking eyes with him. He attempts to make some sort of grateful face, lips forming a tight line. Her eyes widen, and a look of pure wonder covers her face. For a moment, his heart skips a beat. Maybe she thinks he's attractive? He brings a hand to his cheek but stops halfway. Ahh, the bruise. He deflates.
The walk back to his home is windy and hot. The sun casts shadows over cotton and maple trees, the air a flurry of fuzz and helicopter seeds. It smells like summer, so much so that Dennis begins to realize he has a lot of things to get done before it gets too hot to move. Stocking. Sheering. Cleaning. He kicks a rock, slapping a mosquito off his neck. The bike path behind the school leads more or less in the direction of his farm. Each step towards his home has a lump growing in his throat.
Eventually, he finds himself in a barn, ignoring the sweat dripping down his back.
He keeps himself busy with mindless tasks. Bringing water to the pen. Feeding the dogs. Soaking the horses' grain. Cleaning out empty barrels of herbicide. He is interrupted halfway through shoveling shit to be yelled at.
"Did you fuck with the irrigation system?" He has to hold back from rolling his eyes.
Dennis looks up at his brother's loud greeting. Peter stands there, covered in dirt, grass, and sweat. "No."
"No? Then why is the ball joint on the CPI stripped like someone fucked with it?"
Dennis ceases movement of his rake, leaning his arms on the pole, catching his breath for a moment.
"East quarter." He crosses his arms. Dennis wipes his brow on the back of his hand.
"Is that the plot that got all those weeds?" The weeds Dennis had to pull alone, mind you.
Dennis shovels a pile of shit into his wheelbarrow, arms burning pleasantly as he lifts it and moves it outside. Shiny earring. His brow furrows.
"That's the plot with the bad Booster Pump. The water pressures are all wonky. It's putting too much pressure on the joints, so it's stripping them."
"Shit. How long has that been bad?" Peter curses, following behind quickly.
"Dunno, boutta month? I told Dad like 3 weeks ago. He said--"
"Yeah, well, now we have fucked up water output. Who knows how much water we're wasting on that plot?"
Dennis tips the wheelbarrow onto the hay-covered pile. A burst of flies rises into the air. He’s only half listening. The other half of him is dizzy from chemicals and curious eyes. Dennis shakes the rusty wagon and drives it back to the barn. Peter is gone, walking quickly to the work shed.
Dennis lets the tasks of the day take over his mind. He forgets all about yesterday in the field, or the sting in his cheek. He pushes down the burning in his eyes and the pain in his head. Black hair dances in the corner of his eye.
He feeds the animals. This is his favorite part.
Dennis wasn’t like his brothers. Peter always wanted a four-wheeler, Danny loved Dinosaurs, Paul liked spaceships, and Jeremiah liked tractors. Dennis liked the sheep and the dogs. Peter liked holding the sword and shouting, I’ll save you! Dennis liked picking Peter up and saying, Where does it hurt? Danny smashed a velocareptor into a stegosaurus until one finally lay motionless on the hardwood floor. Dennis came over with a Tricaratops and kissed it all better.
One particular moment stayed fresh in his mind. Paul was trying his hardest to scare baby Dennis with the threat of alien invasion. He tried to tell him they were going to show up when we least expected them. He told Dennis they would take Mom and Dad. Dennis had just looked up, confused.
“... Jesus says to love foreigners as yourself, Paul,”
And Paul had thrown his spaceship as hard as he could at the soft skin of Dennis’s forehead.
Father did most of the feeding in the morning, with the cows and sheep in one fell swoop. However, Sally, Dennis’s favorite ewe, had given birth. A sweet baby girl. She was to be bottle-fed twice daily. Since she is so small, she isn’t yet allowed to be with the other sheep for fear of trampling. Rocket, their sheep dog, has grown quite attached to the little thing. However, Rocket has a bad habit of believing the milk is for him, and Dennis usually has to send him outside.
Dennis picked up the ingredients for the lamb's milk and smiled to himself. He thought of the girl in his class as he prepared everything. He thought of the soft curve of her jaw and the way she had swooped in to save the day.
A sickening image of porch lights and angry shouting flashed behind his eyes. His heart rate jumped as he imagined inviting the girl to his home. Just as a friend, of course, but he would ask if it was okay if they went up to his room. Just so his father saw. Just so he wasn’t so angry for a while.
He finishes making the bottle and makes his way to the small shed where the lamb resides. It’s beginning to get dark outside. As he gets closer, he hears a strange sound he can’t quite place. The light outside the shed has drawn its share of bugs, and a halo of moths is growing the farther the sun falls. He pushes the wooden door open slowly, trying to pinpoint the sound. He thinks it might be some kind of insect for a moment, the humming not registering in his ears.
He sees it before he registers what it is.
Your brain does this thing in the amygdala, where it processes a situation and tells you if you should be scared or not. It happens within a split second, quick enough to save your life. Dennis’s amygdala instantly goes into overdrive. His brain supplies all the times Rocket had proved his loyalty. One time, there was a small pack of coyotes that tried to get a sheep during the cold months of early January, and Rocket mauled 6. They found a head on their porch the next morning, its face gnawed on and disfigured.
When Jeremiah's wife first got pregnant, Rocket wouldn’t let anyone near her. They had to drag the damn dog to the shed and lock him in.
He was a good fucking dog. So why, now, is he growling at the 1-month-old lamb?
Dennis feels the hair on the back of his neck rise. A sick feeling fills his stomach. The dog has its head lowered, a deep rumble filling Dennis with terror. The wooden door very softly knocks against the hinge, but Rocket doesn’t notice.
It stirs and lets out a pathetic little bleat. Dennis’s eyes widen, watching as Rocket comes to full height, teeth bared. It’s not the growl that he had with Jeremiah's wife, which was much gentler. This is Rocket being serious. Dennis wills himself to come back to reality and whistles. The quick high whistle that Rocket knows as a recall. Rocket looks up at Dennis, but does not move. The look in Rockets' eyes is not simply feral and angry. It is scared.
Rocket is scared of the lamb.
Dennis quickly looks back to where the lamb was, and jumps when he realizes it has moved a little. Risen to its feet, attempting to stumble to Dennis. Any other day, and that would be adorable. Yesterday, it brought a smile to his face and had him dropping to his knees.
Now, he uses the metal tool to keep the creature at arm's length.
The lamb is confused and hungry.
It looks up and bleats loudly again at Dennis, tiny hooves dig at the shovel. Dennis looks around the room.
He must have missed something. A snake, maybe? Could it be hiding in the hay? A skunk? A coyote could have gotten in and left a scent on the lamb? A bobcat? An opposum? A raccoon—
Rocket grows more agitated the closer the lamb gets to Dennis. His growling grows feral, licking his lips in warning. Rocket snarls and stomps. He wonders if he should pick the lamb up and bring it to safety, but with each passing second, he gets the feeling that touching it is a bad idea.
The lamb goes quiet, and Dennis’s blood runs cold. It stands there for a moment, lethargic. He pants, arms beginning to strain from holding the shovel for so long. The lamb turns to Rocket, and Dennis thinks she might move to greet him as she does. However, it then turns and heads to the corner where it slept moments ago. It sits, and Dennis watches in terror as it falls over and goes stiff.
The quivering in his hands becomes apparent when he drops the shovel. The whooshing sound of blood in his ears doesn’t let him register the eerie silence of the shed until Rocket has walked over and sniffed him. Dennis does not cry, but he does step forward to try to figure out what exactly killed the baby.
Rocket barks, unexpectedly, and Dennis jumps.
A distant bell sounds. Dinner.
He opens the door to the shed, and above him, the light continues to draw in moths, dully thudding against the buzzing light. He tells himself he does not retreat out of fear, but because he does not have enough information to make any other decision. Rocket slips out with him, head low, glancing behind at the barn every couple of steps. It puts Dennis so on edge that he picks up the pace, finding great comfort in Rocket's presence at his side. Rocket stops once they get to the house and lets out a deep sigh that tells Dennis he has more work to do.
He pushes the heavy screen door open slowly so it doesn’t slam. The fattest cat to ever walk the earth meows at him and then hisses loudly. It brings him back to his senses. “Shut up.” He whispers.
The house is quiet when he enters, save for the sound of Mother in the kitchen. He rushes upstairs quietly to change. The wooden floor creaks under every step. The nobs of the sink squeak loudly, rushing ice-cold water onto his burning skin. He doesn't dare glance at his reflection in the mirror above, knowing the expression he has will only remind him of what he just saw. He washes his face just for good measure. He pads downstairs quietly, eyes wide, trained on the ground.
"Denny, is that you? Come set the table.”
He stands in the doorway of the kitchen and holds his wrist tightly.
She turns, a look of concern sweeping over her face. “Everything okay?
“Yes.” He says, feeling sick to his stomach. “I’m okay.”
dailybridgerton
blakekathryn
areudirty
2087
romaincrisis
snowghoul
kianamaiart
gummygunk
tangentwithtanner
germansingergirl
