Sam tells his wife and kids that when next Sunday rolls around, they’ll take that drive he’s been promising across the scenic Midwest. No feat to be sneezed at since they live in New Jersey. Sam figures Iowa and Nebraska should only take half the morning. The remainder will go by in a flash so be ready with those cameras! Sunday finally rolls around and in between Bird-in-Hand and Paradise, they stop for gas and for Jilly, Sam’s wife, some pork rinds. Jilly points with a greasy finger at a cornfield in the distance not too far from the pumps. Let’s explore, she coaxes so everyone gets out and goes down a row. In less than a minute they’re all lost! They keep going but keep coming to dead ends. Every now and then they see other people, at least they think they do and the occasional dog, now and then a cow, a pig or two and chickens all over the place ignoring the rows, some even perched on the bigger ears nestled in soft silk or are they the roasting ears, nobody knows, when it starts to get dark and the stars coming out somehow lead Sam’s family back to the car to begin heading home to New Jersey where they tell their friends and neighbors over the next several weeks the Midwest was, well, just amazing.

Charles Springer has degrees in Anthropology and is an award-winning painter. A Pushcart Prize, Sonder Press Best Small Fictions and Best of the Net nominee, he is widely published in print and online. His first collection of poems, JUICE, was published by Regal House Publishing. A second collection, Nowhere Now Here, is forthcoming from Radial Books. Visit him at https://www.charlesspringer.com.