Animal Farm

She stared at her prize, gleaming in the soft light that marked the beginning of a beautiful pastoral morning in springtime. She'd won; she'd really done it.

When it'd been announced that she had become the first repeat all Ohio champion, she'd nearly swooned in relief. For months she'd worked her recipe to a precise science. She'd studied with well known brew masters. She'd investigated large operations in the area and spent hours in the local University archives trying to glean any speck of information from yesteryear that would once again set her brew above the rest.

The prize money would allow her to continue the small brewery operation she had going in Medina, and she was sure to have yet another surge in business; she might have to actually hire some extra hands. Her next effort would be the national competition and she felt fairly confident that, with some more work, she could win it. She would be empress of beers yet.

It wasn't the business of beer that had kept her up at night though; this she was quite sure of. It was something less tangible. Something foreboding. Her head was spinning, and she felt vaguely nauseous. She did often get migraines, but she what she felt was more sinister.

It was not unlike the feeling she'd gotten early one afternoon nearly 5 years ago, while she'd begun the fermentation  process  in the kitchen of the small house in the country, with the blue shingles. She'd been intent on her work, when out of nowhere she felt her heart plummet, as though she'd been kicked in the stomach. So sudden was the immense worry, that she'd had to sit down, her breaths coming in labored bursts. All day she'd been somewhat queasy, but this was something more...well...intesne.  Sweat had dripped down her brow, and her whole body began to quiver in some sort of anticipatory pain. Suddenly, her thighs were drenched. 

She'd been too frightened to call her brother who lived 4 miles north, and wasn't about to call 911; she didn't have health insurance. As it was, she was living in the house of a high school friend and her husband, but both were at work. Her parents in nearby Mansville, had recently pushed her from the nest when she had voiced interest in making beer. They assumed that she'd been corrupted by the devil and after one of her deviant uncles had introduced her to bud light on the night of her high school graduation. They figured that, since she didn't have a job, and was too stupid for college (she'd always been called "slow" in school), she'd just have to make it on her own somehow.

When her son, Jake,had been born that afternoon those years ago, she had assumed that the devil was indeed working his way through her to punish her for all of her sins, past present and future. In absolute terror and incredulity she'd somehow managed to push the boy out, shrieking all the way.

She hadn't known she was pregnant; she wasn't  even completely sure how one even became pregnant, though she had her suspicions.  She'd always been heavy, so her hosts never wondered at her burgeoning shape.

Now, as dawn broke across the valley, she smiled in recollection, though her unease was still with her. Her friend had thrown her out that very night, incensed by her indiscretion. The boy was just like hids daddy, even in his first days, with his blue eyes and easy nature (he never cried, even in birth). He was golden hued; a few shades lighter than his mama.

After that, she'd made due somehow. Her brother and  his wife had taken her in, and their then two year old son had become like a brother to Jake. 

She'd made a small living then selling her homemade beet beer, a brew she called Fire. She worked hard at it and did well. When she'd won the all county and then all state the first time, business had picked up considerably, and she had bought a little house of her own, about a mile from her brother's family, overlooking expansive farmland an forest. 

Yes, life was good, and it had been for some time. Yet the feeling that something was about to radically change stayed with her all night, and she had been awake, wide awake. 

Suddenly a quiet knocking came at the door. It was so light that she thought it had come from inside the home and she called out to see if Jake was awake. Instead of her son's voice, however, she heard a woman's.

Without thinking she snatched up her trophy and held to her as though it would protect her against the inevitable doom at her door at 5:52am.

“Anna," called the voice through her door.

“ It's open," she croaked. Out in this country, there was need to lock locked the door.

She observed that her old friend looked gaunt. Her blond hair looked unkempt, and she had labored breathing. Anna hadn't seen the woman since she'd been thrown out five years to ago, and she'd certainly never seen her carry a hunting rifle before. 

“I just.... just wanted... wanted you to know that your boy's daddy... He dead."

"You shot 'em?"

"I did. He done fathered one too many nigger bastards."

Anna nodded slowly. He had always likeed dark skinned girls, and it was rumored that he'd drive as far as Cleveland to get it.  

"You gonna shoot me?"

The white woman seemed indecisive, and she hardly moved. Then she slowly shook her head, no. Tears sprung to her eyes, and she sat next to Anna, convulsing grief, laying the gun by the door.

Anna took her friend in her arms, and held her as distant sirens pierced the beautiful sunrise. 

In a fog, she could feel her trophy tumbling out of her hands, shattering to a million fragmented pieces.