they didn’t even give us a chance

 

“You saying you believe the papers?!?”

“I don’t believe you.”

He was incredulous, defensive. She was calm and quiet, like a tide in the middle of the vast blue sea. The kids were running around upstairs, and the patio windows rattled, as well as the sliding glass doors. Outside, the dog barked at something, a stranger walking along the edge of the beach. The refrigerator kicked in and buzzed. Their summer home was on the fritz.

The clouds started raining over the gentle green hills.

The breezy storm in the distance washed over their house. Sweat formed on his warm brow. He was agitated, his heart pounding defiantly in his chest. She was cool like the wind. Upstairs, the kids were playing rough.

And outside on the beach, the dog had settled down and the stranger fiddled with his instrument until he got the settings just right. He was just far away enough so that he could be a blurry shape, unknown as to whether he was walking away or moving towards the house. Simply a brief flash of color, a flutter of cloth somewhere along the arching beach. He held the lens up to his eye and took aim.

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noah uitermark was born in Boone, IA and grew up in rural farmland close to Des Moines. He is one class away from an undergraduate degree at Iowa State University and has been working on short stories intermittently for the past four or five years.