Restart, Reset

Chapter 9

The thrower hurled the clay into the air.

I shouldered my shotgun and took aim, fired. The cloud of BBs flying everywhere but the clay.

“Damn,” I sighed. David and Winter say I need to clear my mind of all but the target, but it's hard to do that. Not with what I know is happening right this minute.

It's been nearly a two weeks since Dad called, it has been hard to not think about it.

Dad was convicted of so many things. And not just light things. And now he's getting parole. He wants to see me.

I don’t want to see him. I’ve seen the things he’s done.

Two weeks has been enough time for all of the snow to melt, the lake ice to melt. And me to feel like I belong here.

Two weeks has been enough time for me to be proficient in simple everyday tasks on the Tenhagen homestead. Two weeks has been enough time to put my mother in prison (which is a surprise with today's government).

Two weeks has been just enough time for me to realize, that this identity, Brantley Sineos, the abused, and the misinformed. Two weeks has been enough time for Brantley Sineos to

be baptized as a new Brantley. I am now Brantley Tenhagen. Treated well and taught the same way. Dad wants to break that.

“Are you ready?” David asked from the thrower.

I peeked into the chamber, there was one round left inside of it. I gave him nod.

A few seconds later the launcher sprung to life again. A blaze orange clay disk following a near the same path as the last. I raised the gun and fired, this time the swarm passed much closer by. The clay caught one or two of the pellets and split in half.

“Nice one, Brantley!” Winter praised.

I turned around to see her standing there. I relinquished the shotgun to her, And taking her place on the pail. David reloaded the thrower while Winter reloaded the gun.

“Ready?” David called.

Winter nodded yes.

And again the launcher threw another identical clay on an identical path. Winter threw the gun up on her shoulder and with the grace of a cat, (Meanwhile my grace was that of a blind cat) then fired a shot that dusted the clay.

She then repeated herself twice more. Executing the shots as if it were something as mere as dropping a piece of paper into the trash can.

“ Okay, I need a little break,” David adjourned. Grunting as he raised himself up from his

position at the thrower, and began walking toward the house.

“‘Aight,” Winter affirmed, opening the action to her shotgun and laying on the ground in the box of shells.  She waited until David disappeared into the house “You’re still caught up on it aren't ya?”

“Yeah, it’s like,” I sighed. Couldn't find any words to match the way I felt about the possibility of Dad taking me back. “Have I told you about my Dad?”

“No, you haven’t” she replied.

“Good,” I finished, “‘Cause you don’t need to know about him.”

“Why?”, she questioned.

“Just don’t worry about it.”

“Worse than your mom?”

“Just please, Winter, don’t worry about it.”

“I’m worrying.”

She was, I could tell. Small little details in the way she was talking. The G was pronounced in ‘worrying’ when it is normally not, the pleading voice. She was worrying for me. Two weeks isn’t a lot of time in the almighty’s scale, but it is down here.

“Winter, dont,” David stopped his daughter’s arguing like a brick wall.

Winter, not wanting to argue with her father stopped, admitting defeat

“Aight now get you butt up, We wanna get this shooting done, right?” He was trying to get us out of the deep dark hole in my life we just kind of grazed around the edges of. One could feel the mood in the air.

“Yeah, I guess,” I sighed, grunting up

“Whaddaya mean ‘I guess’, this is gonna be fun,” Winter lightly punched me in the arm, trying to cheer me up a bit.

I smiled, “I know, I know, I should just keep it aside.”

“Yeah, no crap.”

I grunted myself up. Winter handed me the Gun and a tube's worth of bullets. I stepped up to the area where we shot and lauded the gun, And with a distinctive Chick-Chick, I loaded a shell into the chamber.

I then glanced over to Winter, who had loaded the launcher. I nodded as a sign I was ready. As soon as I looked back towards the sky, the launcher clanged and hurled another orange disk into the air.  I pulled the shotgun to my shoulder, aimed just in front of the target and jerked on the trigger.

As soon as I reopened my eyes the sight I saw was amazing.

The clay had been dusted. Little bits and pieces fell to the ground while a small cloud of dust remained suspended in midair.

And we repeated it again,  And again. Both times with the same results, broken clays and a smile on my face, Winter's face, and David's face.

“Well then, Brantley I think ya’ve got it!” David exclaimed. “Now you two get to pick all this crap up,” He paused, “Shell hulls are expensive.”

And with that David went back up to the house. Winter and I started picking up the shells, hunched over, and scanning through the gray dirt and tan dead grass for the bright red hunks of plastic and metal.  Once we finished placing them all in the five gallon bucket they came from, we walked them to the barn.

“You know Genisis is coming over right?” Winter asked, as we exited the barn door

“Nooo, is Noah gonna come?”

“Ohhh no, their parents don’t know that they’re datin’, so Shhh.”

“Dang It,” I exclaimed.

As if on a que, an SUV rolled on up through the Driveway, came to a stop, and out popped Genisis who ran to winter and gave her a hug, while her mom knocked on the door and walked in.

I just stood there, smiling. Within a period of 45 minutes all my worries seemed to fall away. I took one deep breath of the spring air and let it out, sighing in happiness.

Authors Note: sorry its short, and sorry it toke so long to get out.
Its 1058 words, a number I know by heart now due to the word limit in the narrative writing assignment in which I wrote this for. And i had a hard time with that word limit of 1000, given i typically write close to 1200-1500.
But it is also probably one of the mist revised chapters in the story
Hope you enjoyed
     RA out