One half of a marriage dies, and the other half is left adrift. The response is profound and majestic, loving and bittersweet.
"Dirt is a simple thing, and reliable, and the simplest, finest dirt is loess. Violent winds carried it here during the dry centuries at the end of the Ice Age. Loess is an obedient, compliant soil that welcomes the chance to be cut and carried, pushed where it is needed, and then piled high and packed with the hard churning treads of the Cat. But driving a big Cat is not easy work for most people. Even a natural talent, someone like Jake, requires years of practice and sloppy mistakes before the hands know how to move, steering the Cat where it needs to be. Before the feet know how to let up on the pedal, borrowing just enough of the big diesel's muscle to keep things moving but under control. Before the mind knows what the simple brown earth is doing on the other side of that tall steel blade, even when the sun-scorched eye can see none of it."
Robert Reed has written and published several hundred stories, most of which are science fiction. A few are fantasy and horror. "The Sleeping Woman" is an outlier, stark and honest.
Genre: Horror
"Dirt is a simple thing, and reliable, and the simplest, finest dirt is loess. Violent winds carried it here during the dry centuries at the end of the Ice Age. Loess is an obedient, compliant soil that welcomes the chance to be cut and carried, pushed where it is needed, and then piled high and packed with the hard churning treads of the Cat. But driving a big Cat is not easy work for most people. Even a natural talent, someone like Jake, requires years of practice and sloppy mistakes before the hands know how to move, steering the Cat where it needs to be. Before the feet know how to let up on the pedal, borrowing just enough of the big diesel's muscle to keep things moving but under control. Before the mind knows what the simple brown earth is doing on the other side of that tall steel blade, even when the sun-scorched eye can see none of it."
Robert Reed has written and published several hundred stories, most of which are science fiction. A few are fantasy and horror. "The Sleeping Woman" is an outlier, stark and honest.
Genre: Horror
Used availability for Robert Reed's The Sleeping Woman