What could be done? All day, just silence. Gray and desolate for miles. Power down since the last morning, phones getting no signal for the past day. An immaculate heat, one that had been swelling with no sign of stopping. A haze lay over the field and there was no A/C to use. Edgar had filled a dog’s bath with ice. It’s a design he made almost instinctively, a leftover from when the power used to go out all the time. A few beer cans lay on the surface of the freezing water and a dozen empties sat in single file on the edge of the porch. She breathed lightly and covered her eyebrows with the side of her hand and looked out across the horizon. Only sky and more sky. She lay back on her chair and looked up at the overhand and the old wood, a project that Edgar had set upon decades ago, during his quiet period when the kids were wild and he couldn’t understand them. She belonged to him then in a way that felt more like devotion than desire. But life is long and love is an evolving creature, so when the kids stopped being kids and started being people, he came around again and was playing his guitar again. He had driven into town two hours ago to see if he couldn’t find out more about what that sound was that had shaken the earth before all the power had dropped out. He took the only truck and left her home, ensuring he’d be back with information of importance. And as she started to look down the two lane road to see if the return trip was coming to an end, she could see that the line at the end of the sky was a dark, thick layer, spreading all across the north like a coming storm, but thicker; greater. And the earth below began to tremble, not in any concussive way, but steadily like a head of giant animal approached. But the sky grew still darker and the blackness grew. All the birds had gone silent and the air was still and empty like a closed office. She suddenly missed Edgar more than she’d ever known, a craving for him, just his voice one last time.ؓ
