Maggie in Her Dress

It was twilight when Maggie stepped outside to her back porch barefoot. The end of the day, almost, and the temperature outside had just started to cool, and she was finally off her feet. The house inside was still stifling without air conditioning. Well, even in the winter months it was stifling to her. They didn't like windows opened in this house.

She looked passed the porch toward the old decrepit barn. Its red paint was peeling and the wood looked warped and worn. Almost like her. Everything around her was in disrepair and falling apart. Including herself.

She inhaled deeply and took in the breeze that drifted over her, billowing her cotton gauze dress.

There was a time when her house, the barn, and the surrounding property was filled with life, when she was a little girl. She remembered all the animals that used to be housed in the barn. The chic's and the horse she used to feed and pet the most.

Throughout the years she came and went from her family’s home. She regretted it because she left the family, her once close friends, and her horse Constanza, a Spanish Kiger Mustang colored like a gray donkey with bars on her legs. She was regal, and yet she had to leave her.

Every time she came back home she noticed what died off, what was neglected, and what changed for the worst.

She heard a neighbor's large dog howling mournfully in the distance.

“Maggie!” Her thoughts were abruptly interrupted by the call for her in the house.

She quickly decided to walk out across the dried-up grassy field toward the barn, for some space and more air, further away from the house. Lately, she’d periodically been feeling a tightness in her chest. She couldn’t pinpoint what it could be but she knew she couldn’t go on how she was.

She remembered walking and loping Constanza around the pen, and as soon as Constanza would see the open gate she’d bolt right out, a true mustang. When she was a filly, the names Bolt, Stormy, and Trigger were considered although Constanza was too intelligent, too beautiful, and too sweet for those names.

She felt freest in her life when running Constanza on the pasture.

She came to the threshold of the barn, just as a cloud of bats squeaked and fluttered overhead. These days the doors just stood open. The only things left were old farming tools, and old household fixtures like the old windows and doors, hardware and tub.

She had to give it to her aging parents. They tried. She tried too. They were both self-sacrificing to a fault. Their lives were just work and toil. No vacations, no day trips, no dates or eating out in town. They couldn’t even maintain their property or house. Her dad gave up a long time ago and I guess her mother did too. Now she was giving up, ‘but what should I give up? Should I run now? Should I become how they want me to become, just like them? Watching Jeopardy every night? And rotting away?’

She felt the tightness in her chest getting tighter and it was harder to breath. Her eyes were red and wet, but no tears came. This happened periodically these days too. No tears. I'm all dried up, like my soul.

She made it into the barn right on time, so she could have her proper freak out in private, and she did just that. She brought up her hands to her face and let her head and face land into the palms of her hands. It wasn’t just a lack of oxygen but a sudden wave a nausea that had her reeling.

She let herself fall to her knees. Her hands to the ground, steadied her. Grasping her face again, she heard a noise! A soft pelt to a tin can or bucket.

Her body was paralyzed in fear but she quickly turned her face in the direction from where the noise came.

Letting out a guttural cry, she stumbled back at the site of a man with a white t-shirt and dark hair covered in soot. She was fumbling for footing when the face came at her.

He was suddenly upon her! His hands over her mouth and panting wildly! 'Oh no, Oh no, Oh no!' She heard herself trying to scream, felt her heart beating out of her chest, and was aware of her vision blurring from the tears that instantly streamed from her eyes.

“Shut the fuck up!” He shouted with a contorted face.

She stopped at his command but her thoughts turned from fear to anger, as she panted. She wanted to bite the shit out of his dirty hand or grab and kick the son of bitch! Or hit him with the fking shovel! Where was the gdmnd shovel?! Of course, it wouldn’t be found so easy in her dad’s barn, she thought to herself while crying in frustration.

But she was also terrified so she glared up at the stranger instead and stood deathly still, tears still trickling from her eyes. She couldn’t think of a way out so she studied his face instead.

“Listen up,” he said, while inching back. “I’m going to let you up. Now go real fucking slow or I’ll make sure you can’t get up next time. And don’t make any noise.”

She frowned and the wave of nausea hit again. He looked at her with cerulean blue eyes and hovered just over her head, waiting for her as she propped herself up, dazed.

She was sick and embarrassed and curious to how he would proceed. She couldn’t let go of the sinking feeling her life would never be the same.