a world as small as this

that was the summer it was dark all the time. all the summers before and a small few after were bright suns and starlight, but that summer was every moment dark. the kind of dark that is moments before thunderclap, but the thunder never comes. the birds were quiet then too, come to think of it. no bird songs and also there was no running or bouncing the ball on the side of the barn, or flipping through the comics on the porch. the dog slept through all the days and nights and the milk didn't sour, even when i left it out too long. that was the summer everything was off and nothing was right. that was the summer no one asked where i was going or where i'd been. the screen door didn't slam and the ice cream didn't melt. the chickens chased the cat through the yard, circled the tree and then they all laid down to rest together. that was the summer it was dark all the time and no one even talked about it, not once. clothes hung on the line for weeks  and i'd take a sock when it was a sock i was needing, leaving the rest there in the wind that didn't pick up and the sun that didn't pick up and the whole damn planet that didn't pick up. clothes hung out for weeks until they stopped fitting anyone i knew, not for us growing, but for the pants and shirts and socks shrinking down to fit the size of people who lived in a world as small as this. little gnome people, hobgoblin trickster people, the kind of people who grow tired of the light and move underground where the only clothes you need are to cover your crawling knees and maybe a glove for your dragging knuckles. that was the summer it was dark all the time and the trees grew faster than ever before and the honeybees life-cycled in half a day, never even losing their stingers. that was the summer of everything backward, ice melting where there was no heat and the tips of my fingers numb like they'd never known anything to touch. the path from here to there and there to here wore right down to the brown dirt and then into the deep black dirt and then all the way down to the water table and the path flooded itself right good and then it was the river from here to there and there to here. but my clothes never did dry, and when i walked on land, the land she didn't want none of the water i was shedding, so everywhere i went was a puddle.

(freewrite: that was the summer i... write from a gender not your own: 18 minutes)