Friday Flash: kingdom of dirt, pencil lead, sway in fiction: flash, one word, etc.

Just a start... wasn't going to post because it isn't complete, but then, what is the point of flash if not to inspire and grow?

Kingdom of Dirt

Margaret stared out the window as she finished the dishes and looped a wayward strand of her tan hair behind her ear. She could see the wind lift the dust up along the rise of the mountain. The fields should have been green by now, shoots of wheat poking up through the topsoil. But there was no rain.

She put the dishes in the cupboard, and then sat at the wooden table Abraham had made for her, just after they’d finished building the house. Only four rooms, but plenty of space to add on when they had a family. Abraham had told her one more good crop and they’d be ready. The year before, even when the stock market crashed, they’d harvested a bumper crop of wheat. Another eighty acres plowed this year, even with the loan for the seed, should have made them more than comfortable.

Instead of green fields ripening into gold though, the dust blew into dervishes and the sky never cleared. The fertile loam of topsoil that they’d been so proud to turn over blew into clouds that made heaven seem like a kingdom of dirt. She stayed inside all the time. Abraham went out, wrapping towels around his face and wearing goggles to walk the fields where his seeds should have sprouted. She feared he would lose his way, and even if he didn’t, that he’d lose his mind.

Their neighbors had already left, going back east to stay with family until they decided what to do next. Abraham and Margaret could go back to Indiana, where his brother farmed, but the brother’s had quarreled before the young couple left for Kansas. Margaret couldn’t convince Abraham into swallowing his pride. He wouldn’t be swayed into leaving. He was just sure things would get better.

Margaret pulled her pencil and paper from her apron pocket. She tried to keep a list of things they needed when they went into town, but since there was no money, she wasn’t sure what the point was. Absently, she made the list she would have made if things were different: butter, milk, eggs, apples, sugar, coffee. As she wrote, the lead of the pencil caught in the wood grain of the table and her script came out wobbled, as though she were an old woman. Chocolate, peppermint, perfume, she added. When the pencil lead broke, she stepped over to the sink again and pulled a paring knife from the drawer to sharpen the pencil. The knife nicked her finger. Only when bright red blood beaded did she realize how dull and gray her life had become. There was no color anywhere.

She put the cut to her mouth and sucked on it until the bleeding stopped. She’d had enough. When he came back, she’d tell Abraham that they had to go. That she had to go. There was never going to be a crop in this mess. They could try again later; maybe plant a winter crop if it rained. Maybe the seeds would sprout then, and they’d get a magical second crop from the stubble, enough at least to pay for the seed.

She reached over to turn on a lamp; the sky had grown even darker. She couldn’t tell if it was the night falling, a storm, or just the damned dust.