[1178]Moonshine Greys

Just wrote this short story and I’m new to Reddit, so hopefully my structure here is ok! Just looking for some feedback on the material if possible.

Critique For mods: https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/s/rnNcL5fnIi

A man sits in the sand outside a bar in the middle of the desert. The sparks of the fire he shares with a stranger light his face as he stares into the flames. He shares his moonshine with the stranger until he sees their drunken face fall into a sleep-like daze. His gaze descends and the front of his hat covers his eyes before he speaks.

———

A lot of people been dyin’ round these parts lately. I seen the sand swallow’m whole. Some of’m were so dry, you’d thought they were dead trees… It’s a long trip from this canteen filler to the next one down yonder ‘n most people don’t make it this time’a year.

Still, I watch entire families passin’ the city limits every day. They rather face death head on than lay down and take it on their backs. Or maybe they’re just bored… Hard to tell. You’d be surprised how such a beautiful, expansive place can feel so crowded and dull.

Some people say the desert’s bigger than the earth, that you could walk around the globe three times and never reach the end of it all, ha! If I told you no one would ever find the edge, would you say that it didn’t exist? If you tied a carrot to a stick that no one could ever catch, would you say it was inedible? Maybe…

I often wonder about the edge… Should I chase it? Should I dedicate every last breath to exploring the limits of it all… to feel the freedom of adventure and to stamp my name in the history books as the man who did the impossible, even if it was the last thing I’d ever do!? The thoughts come and go like bruises, aching but eventually fading.

I seen too many people die running from the boredom. Days like this, the greys seem to get greyer though. A special kinda grey, one you only feel when there’s bodies at your feet. When I look at’m, the grey starts to scare me. When I look away, I get angry. Sometimes, you just gotta look straight ahead if you wanna get where you’re goin’.

“You may not see the sunrise on the edge of that cold, dead nothin’ of a horizon in front of you. Just put one foot in front of the other, and you’ll reach somethin’”… So they say.

One thing I do know — if I were to ever become king, I’d outlaw the color grey.

Another thing I know, takin’ a long, deep breath can ease a man’s troubles more than we let on. It reminds us that we’re more than just cattle, dragin’ our life behind us as our shoulders break.

Some of these “people” ain’t never felt a day of relief in their life. You can see it on their backs…

Not me though. People always ask me, “How come you ain’t got a care in the world ol’ Bill?” Sometimes they don’t even say the words, they just give me that look.

When they do ask, I often respond with that ol’ “If I told ya, I’d have to kill ya.” They always laugh at that one, but little do they know it’s true….

About fifteen years ago, I murdered my wife an’ kids.

They was sick with somethin’ terminal an’ I couldn’t take the sound uh their confused voices gettin’ raspier. Callin’ out for help that I couldn’t give’m.

After I put the kids to bed, I kissed my boy’s cheek as my tears covered his face, then I pulled the blanket over his head and shot his skull to pieces. Like a stone breaking through a glass window.

I couldn’t bear to look at my daughter, so I shot her in the back of the head as she was wakin’ back up.

I was outta bullets after that, so my wife was a little trickier. She was so bad at that point; she didn’t even wake up from the sound of the gunshots. I put some strong poison in her medicine and fed it to her.

I laid in bed with her and held her so tight, with more love than I ever showed her our entire marriage…

Us men like to hold our feelings inside; we hold’m in as if we’re savin’m for a rainy day. But sometimes the rain doesn’t come ‘till the drought already killed the grass…

I held her in the blanket for so long. She started to cough, the more she did the tighter I held her. I wished at that point that I never did it. That we never met. That none of’m were ever born. And then I wished I was dyin’ too…

Only reason I didn’t end it was cuz I wanted to know their sufferin’ ended before I died…

I held my wife for so long. After she stopped coughin’, I felt her slip away from me.

I hardly remember gettin’ up, but after I did, I lit the house on fire and watched it burn. I was planin’ to tell the townfolk the house burnt down while I was away, but no one ever asked…

Though, somethin’ happened to me while I watched the flames that I wasn’t expectin’. I felt some sense of peace…

Maybe they wasn’t sick… Maybe they was… I can’t even remember my lies from my truths no more and I don’t think I could handle it even if I wanted to…

I think they was sick but maybe it’s just the way my mind remembers it, the way it wants to remember it…

I’ll never try to justify what I done, never try to escape the guilt of it. But I’d be lyin’ if I said I wasn’t at peace.

Nowadays it feels like peace is more part of my life than the sun itself.

I walk down a road, littered with death and hatred and desperation and uncertainty and fear and darkness, and peace seems to light my way somehow.

It keeps me warm at night when I’m alone’n keeps me cool during the day, like a breeze in the spring.

These nights, I sleep in the dirt with my horse while the sun goes down as I drink the stars of the night sky through the hat cover’n my face.

I’m not afraid of the bugs. I’m not afraid of marauders, stealin’ my stuff in my sleep. I’m not afraid of life, and I’m not afraid of death.

When things get hard, I breathe in the air of the moment and know that the world doesn’t need me, and I don’t need the world. I just am. And I am at peace…

But every once in a while… I see a little girl walk past, or maybe she’ll be laying on the ground beg’n for help, or maybe she’ll be dead…

And I see the back of my daughter’s head… ‘s all grey…

⸻

He looks into the fire and the flames are indistinguishable from the sand.