The fall evening was calm, the pasture in perfect stillness and the clouds washed in a muted glow of amber that manifested a barrier between the world and the cosmos. At the edge of the pasture the trunks of cedar rose high and their leaves danced in the wind carried over from the adjacent valley. Even the pervasive critters showed an unusual silence. Everything was just as it was, until it wasn't.
About a half mile down a dirt road that led into the middle of the pasture, and under a towering sycamore whose branches hung like palms on the Fourth of July, stood a house. The house was an artifact of a time past, now in complete disarray. The focal point of the structure was a protruding window just left of the front door with unfastened shutters that tapped at both sides. The yellow paint around them had flecked and fallen away. The deck of the porch was tilted by dry rot, and on the driveway next to it rested an old pickup truck with its engine block removed amidst a pile of tools, one sorely functioning sedan parked next to it.
"You think you can control me!" a voice from inside the house shouted.
A glittering crash split the silence of the valley as a large box television exploded through the house's window and smashed down onto the dirt, peppering it with glass and debris. A cloud of dust rose and fell to reveal the janky television standing up and facing the house.
"You had to run your mouth," the voice muttered as the screen flung open.
A lanky, unkempt man with an oozing gash on his scalp slunk to the edge of the porch near a beat-up gas canister. He stood with eyes shining in the waning skylight.
He smacked his lips. "You and your television."
In his left hand he gripped a revolver between scarred knuckles. With a shock of adrenaline, he raised it like a mercenary and took aim at the contraption. He fired once and the bullet skimmed the top molding and singed the faux wood. He fired another that exploded one of the knobs to bits. He fired a third that struck with a thud unlike the other two.
"D'ya know how to shoot or not?" he cried as he focused harder and fired a shot directly into the center of the console, riddling the orb with cracks but failing to fully shatter it. The gun fell to his side and his expression ignited with rage as he charged toward the box and drove his boot into its panel. He struck it again and again then smacked it with his open palm until its broken skin glowed like hot coals. Having had enough, he planted his boot on the face of the console and thrust its back to the ground, sending up another cloud that dusted the nearby flower bed. The cracked glass vignetted the last bits of sunset as the man raised the barrel of the gun. With a flash of the muzzle, the kaleidoscope of colors imploded into the box and left behind a mess of mechanical pieces.
He slid his boot off it and sat down on its frame.
Nightfall blanketed the country and reenlisted the stillness of the quiet day. While warm days in the valley came with a gracious breeze welcomed on beaded necklines and damp clothes stuck to tired skin, nights were dark and cold and the soft wind became unforgiving as it churned with a convulsive force that whipped over the basin leaving seasoned homesteaders retreating behind raised walls.
The man sat on the television pondering like a Rodin. A chill from the breeze erected the soft hairs down his collar and into his shirt. He pulled a flask from his back pocket and took a few selfish gulps before tucking it away. An ease came about him. His spine arched deeper and he sighed a melody of liquored regret. He studied his hands. Working hands, firm and ripe with thick calluses that coated his palms and extended up to wide nail beds. The knuckles on the left were cut and stained with blood that seeped through the creases of his fingers and coagulated on the handle of the revolver. With a growing carelessness from the chill, and the booze, and exhaustion born of wild shooting sprees, he dropped the pistol into the dirt and brought his other hand up to feel along the stained skin. He examined each freckle that led down his arm to his hand, blotchy with crimson. He wiped it on his pant leg and darkened it with a brown streak.
His wedding ring became visible. He struggled to pull it free, but eventually it came off and he held it in his palm like a hatched egg. His pupils dilated. With the ring rolling over the creases in his palm, it was as if he became something happy, unperturbed by past tragedy.
But as painful recollections only experience a brief latency before coming to the forefront of one's thoughts, this look of his, as it always had since her passing, reverted to remorseful agitation. Another ping struck his body and he sprung up like a prodded animal.
"To hell with it!" He hurled the ring into the garden beneath the remains of the window. "And to hell with that Dixon farm, that fast-talking fool!" He pointed north as he paced back and forth huffing. "'Just let it go', he says… 'there ain't no use holding onto things.'" The man's face boiled to a grimace. "Like you know what the hell yer on about you little bastard. You… you devil!" He threw his arms out as if being put to the cross. "But don't you worry. I've let it go. I've let all of it go! I don't want any more part of nothing!" His arms fell against his waist. "And just so you know I'm a man of my word."
Without another breath, he was fast up the porch and out of sight from the stars, leaving nothing but a faded musk that the breeze sifted away.
The man sped up the wide staircase just past the living room, and once upstairs stumbled from one room to another tossing around objects, small and large, and cursing to himself through coarse whiskers. "All worthless, every last bit!" A deep vibration chiseled the south side of the house, followed by the sound of a mirror shattering, a chime which cut through the rooms of the second floor and shimmered down the stairs. He hucked a delicate vase that exploded like a grenade and ricocheted across the floor of the bedroom. He pulled down pictures, emptied drawers, flipped tables, even ripped pages from random journals and tossed them on the pile of strewn memories. With nothing left to terrorize, he came to a stop amidst crinkled papers and sharded debris and whispered a sort of giggle.
"This would've been her favorite." The giggle changed to a moan as he dragged the piece of furniture across the creaking floorboards. "Old growth sonofabitch," he whispered through his teeth as he shuffled the towering fixture and inched it out of the room toward the top of the staircase.
It was a beautiful, gaudy chifforobe. An elegant work of craftsmanship containing all the ornaments and compartments one could possibly conceal. Finished to perfection and lavishly coated in a pink pastel with an eggshell trim that illuminated the bow with soft ease. On the bottom right corner, burned into the oak, was a quote.
"Where o' death is your victory? Where o' death is your sting?"
The man twisted and heaved the chifforobe little by little to bring it to the top of the staircase. After nearing the edge, he cleared his throat and raised his flask to the invisible audience in the foyer below.
"To all the things I never had… and to all the things I never wanted." He took a swig and tossed the empty container into the other room as the smoky dribbles trickled down his scruff. He huffed again and prepared to throw his weight against the luxurious piece. Just as the moment came to deliver the final blow, a spark of light emanated from the chifforobe, and its doors fell open to bathe the room in brilliance.
The man froze as the light clothed him in a white sheet.