...no longer exist apart from one another. They have instead blended together—it is no longer "last Tuesday he herded the sheep into the barn because the wind chill was so brutal, it would have frozen them alive.” Rather, it has become “some point in the past month, it was cold, which meant he had to protect his flock."
He cradles a cigarette in his calloused fingers. His woolen socks are pulled high up over the cuffs of his tattered slacks. He sits in an oak rocking chair, which he had built over thirty years ago.
"Good morning, Sweets," he says hoarsely.
She shifts in bed, the springs creak, and she groans.
"I made you some lentil soup." He points to a crusty Tupperware container filled with steamy, brown goop.
At that, her eyes squint open. Little tear droplets form in the leathery creases of skin. "You look." She pauses for a moment, as her chest heaves up and down. "Like a dog."
He ignores her, bringing the cigarette to his lips and staring out the window. His land, in February: craters of mud brimming with dirty runoff---residue from the gray canvas of the sky, having slid down barren tips of stripped trees and pooled at the bases of their trunks. A desolate, barren wasteland of clumped, icy prairie grass.
Surrounded by death, his chest swells with warmth. They could be the last two people on Earth. A small gaggle of geese jab their beaks at clumps of frozen dirt.
This, he thinks, is beautiful.
When he looks back at her, she is staring up at him, and now she’s the dog---her beady eyes wide and needy, her panting breaths short and quick. He exhales, rises from the rocking chair, and pinches the butt of the cigarette, before pressing it against her chapped lips. The skin on her neck is nearly dripping off, but as she inhales it tightens inwards---firm and taut. She holds the smoke inside for a few moments, before it all comes tumbling out in a burst of hacking, throaty coughs.
"You’re killing yourself, Sweets."
She gargles mucous, and he grasps a big, chalky metal spoon with his warped fingers. Kneeling beside the bed, he takes a spoonful of soup. He brings it to her mouth, but accidentally spills some on her nightgown. She closes her eyes and gasps.
"I’m sorry." He says.
She shakes her head.
"Did you get burned?"
She shakes her head again. Her lips quiver and she takes in a deep breath. She’s trying to speak.
"If it’s too hard to talk, it’s okay."
"No," she whispers. Mucous dribbles out the corner of her lip. Her eyes well up again, and she closes them.
He puts the soup on the bedside table, next to a faded pink, plastic phone, and shuffles out of the room.
"I'll be back later," he says. She's weeping softly now. He closes the door.
