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Introduction: Peter Carson of Farmington, New Mexico is a 34 year old struggling farmer who has been experiencing an ever-increasing suspicion that his wife, Martha, is having an affair with a local 25 year old college student named Patrick Delaware. Patrick, according to Martha, is a good, handsome young man with his head situated evenly and sturdily on his shoulders. Peter, having been subjected to ungodly amounts of agonizing stress due to a drought that has afflicted his land for two years running, begins to suspect that his wife's fascination with this young man is deeper than mere admiration. We will join Peter as he is just on the verge of making a mistake that he will regret for the rest of his natural life. As you will see, Peter is overcome by jealousy, rage and restlessness. He lets these wild emotions take hold of him and guide him towards an inevitable miscalculation that might just cost him his life. The year is 1943. Chapter 1: A life-ending drought made its way through the west like an unstoppable freight train loaded to the brim. "The harvest will be piss-poor at best this year" thought Peter as he quickly and violently wiped the sweat from his brow, tore his granddad's lucky hat from his head, and cranked the engine of his brand new Fordson model N. "How the hell am I supposed to pay this damn thing off?" he said aloud as if someone were around to hear him. "I've already taken out three mortgages on this forsaken plot and the bank ain't gonna give me no more." Peter's wife, Martha, had left for the market only moments earlier, although Peter suspected she would be making a pit stop in town to have a visit with her newly found friend, Patrick. Lately, all you could hear coming out of Martha's mouth was Patrick this and Patrick that. In fact, just before she left for the market on this very day, Peter recalled his wife saying "You know, honeydew, if you'd have gone to college, like Pat, maybe we wouldn't have to worry about this farm, and these mortgages, and..." "Aw just shut the hell up, woman!" Peter remembered cutting her off and shooting her an indignant, disgruntled looking glare that seemed to come straight from the depths of hell. "I don't wanna hear another damn word about college, or this damn Patrick character, or any of it!" "I'm frustrated enough as it is without having to hear what we shoulda, coulda, and woulda done if we'd uh had the privileges the young folk of today do!" "We're here now ain't we?" "Ain't a damn thing we can do about it!" he remembered screaming just as his wife turned her back to him and opened the creaky, nearly unhinged door of the rusty old '35 Chevy panel truck Peter had bought at auction back in '41. She didn't even say I love you. She just started the Chevy up and sped off, obviously flustered by her husbands offensive, interrupting and excessive outburst. Peter recalled a cloud of dust enveloping him as he chased after the Chevy screaming "Damn it all, woman!" "You better be back here before supper time or so help me god I'm gonna..." and she was gone. Peter put his granddad's lucky hat back on top of his balding head and continued to crank the model N. Not even a putter of fumes would be coming out of the exhaust pipe on this day. "Now what in the hell is wrong with this thing?" Peter muttered to himself as his blood pressure steadily rose higher and higher. His heart was just about on the brink of implosion by the time he unscrewed the gas cap of the model N only to discover that she was bone dry; not even a drop to get her warmed up while he went to town for fuel. "Son of a bitch!" Peter exclaimed as he came to the realization that his wife had just taken the only automobile they had to go off gallivanting, and most likely copulating, with some youthful, care-free son bitch that didn't know a damn thing about how the real world functioned. "Damn it all!" he screamed. "Why have you forsaken me?" he said as he stared into the clouds, reached his open hands to the sky and fell to his knees. "That woman better be back here mighty quick" he thought to himself as his arms dropped to his sides, his chin fell to his chest and he collapsed face first into the arid, lifeless desert floor. The blazing August sun beat down on his back and made him thirst like he'd never before thirsted in his life. "I need a beer" Peter said to himself as he spit out the several granules of sand that had found their way under his lips. "Hell, maybe three or four." "I got time." he said and scoffed as he nodded his head left and right in complete disbelief of the situation his wife had put him in. "I gotta be dreamin" he said as he gradually rose to his feet, haphazardly slapped at his clothes in a misguided effort to dust himself off, and staggered to the back door of his dilapidated and neglected one-bedroom home. When he finally made it to the door, he stood in silence staring at the mat below his feet. His wife had had a friend make it for her and she gav gave it to him as a gift on their fifth anniversary. It said "Welcome Home, Honeydew" in green and yellow lettering. As he stood there, nearly dying of thirst, he remembered the first time his wife had ever called him by that affectionate nickname. It was two weeks after they'd gotten married in 1932. The depression had just about reached it's pinnacle and most folks around the country were struggling to survive. Luckily, Peter had inherited a few thousand dollars from his recently deceased parents and was able to put a down payment on the 120 acre farm that would carry him and his wife through the economic downturn the country was experiencing at the time. Peter had calculated that even with two or three children, Martha and he would be able to withstand the economic drought that plagued the nation. Months before they were married, Peter and Martha had spoken of having children. It was Martha's greatest desire. She had always dreamed of filling their home with the warmth, love and total happiness that her and Peter had the privilege of experiencing as children. Martha had come from a family of seven children and she had many fond memories of her childhood. She remembered every night at supper time, her mother's powerful voice would ring out over the land, "Supper time!," the dinner bell would clang and all the children, including herself, would subsequently rush through the fields, up the stairs on the back porch, through the squeaky screen door and find their spot at the massive, oak table that her father had whittled himself one winter when she was five. She remembered being stirred out of her slumber in the middle of the night by the pitter-patter of her younger sister Dorothy's footsteps as she rushed to the washroom, striving to avoid another accident and wet sheets. She remembered when her father taught her to swim at Lawson's pond and her older brother, Sam, just teased the hell out of her until their father laid a good lickin' down on his bare back. All Martha desired was to provide the same encouraging and sentimental memories for her own children at some point down the line. But soon after Peter and Martha were married, a discouraging and completely unexpected discovery almost tore their relationship apart. It seemed that it just wasn't God's will for Martha and Peter to have a family together. Okay that's it had to add the extra in the details. Thank you two so far!

Public Comments

1. Pretty good so far - keep going!!


2. it's interesting enough to grab some attention, keep going :D


3. New speaker, new paragraph. Especially on screen, this is basically unreadable.


4. Your writing is very well developed. I'm not particularly fond of the story line, but that's just my personal preference as it's not a genre I generally read. But you shouldn't let that discourage you - not everyone will like every genre. Your story is still grabbing and interesting and well written.

   Your editing is good (again, thanks!) but you do need to separate your story into a few more paragraphs as this is hard to read. However, I get the feeling that you've only done that here to save space as you're pretty limited with what you can fit in on Y!A.

   Just one caveat - if you're writing a historical fiction, make sure you've done your research. I didn't see any inaccuracies but, again, this is just a short excerpt, so it's just something to keep in mind as you continue.

   Well done (although I like your other story better!).