Amoral Essense - 1. Prologue

As winter gently drifted away, spring and summer approached briskly. I hated the summer. In Anderson Valley, Nebraska it was day after day humidity that could drive a person insane. Living in the mid-west where it hardly rained only made our hell that much wretched. I remember the day Mr. Jameson came into town like it was yesterday. It was raining, lightening, thundering, storming all together. Momma was cutting up some green beans and Daddy was reading his newspaper. The only time Daddy ever got away from the farm was when it was raining. The whole house had this odd essence that day. Seemed that it wasn’t only our house but the whole town. I was looking out of our screen door at the rain filling up holes in our driveway. Momma gasped and Daddy just peered over his paper.

She cut herself. It was an accident that happens to most housewives at some time or another, just not Momma. We had seen her chop turnip greens faster than anyone else in the town and not once, before this, did she ever cut herself. The pain didn’t last long. She just sighed, glanced over at Daddy who had continued his reading, and wrapped a cloth around it. You would probably agree that there was no connection between Momma cutting herself and Mr. Jameson coming to town. I, however, would soon think otherwise.