Poor Reflections

The ancient clock radio ticked over to 6:00am, and the speakers obediently blared to life.

*click* "SKY DIVIN’
I WENT ROCKY MOUNT’N–"

*SLAM*

Allison’s fist pounded into the top of the radio, silencing it. God, Ah hate that song, she thought as she hauled herself upright and out of bed with a groan. She twisted away the kinks in her back, and was rewarded with a chorus of popping noises. She blinked away the last of the sleepiness from her emerald green eyes as she ran a hand through her long blonde hair, then grabbed a pair of jeans and an orange t-shirt and got dressed for the morning chores.

She hopped down the stairs to join the rest of her family in the kitchen. Her grandmother busied herself at the stove over a large pot of oatmeal and a griddle full of eggs and potatoes. Her giant of an older brother, Mackenzie, ever the early riser, was already chowing down – it was likely he wanted an early start on spraying the orchard before the sun got too hot. Her twelve-year-old sister, Alexis, came trotting down the stairs right behind her, a large pink bow tying back her fiery red ponytail.

“Well, mornin’ sleepyheads,” her grandmother greeted them as they sat at the kitchen table. She placed a fully laden plate of steaming vittles in front of each of her granddaughters, then set about ladling a bowl of oatmeal for herself.

“Mornin’, Granny,” they chimed in unison as they dove into their delicious morning feast.

“Oh hey,” Alexis said around a mouthful of potatoes, “can somebody run me into town this afternoon? Ah’m hangin’ out with Sam and Shireen.”

“Don’t yew tawk witcher mouth full, youngin’,” the family matriarch reprimanded Alexis in a thick Kentucky drawl as she rapped her on the head with a wooden spoon.

Allison hid a small smile behind her glass of milk.

“Ouch! Sorry! Jeez." She swallowed. "Anyways, can anybody take me? We wanna get the most out of our last day o’ summer.”

Allison continued chewing in silence, learning from her little sister’s mistake. Ah’ve a feelin’ Ah’m ‘bout to get voluntold, anyhow, she thought.

As if on cue, Mackenzie stood up to take his dishes to the sink with a simple, “Nope.” He left the kitchen and strode out the front door without another word.

“Sawrry, smelly-belly, Ah gotta git them accounts squirreled away afore th’end o’ the month. Ain’t got tahm fer a milk run.”

Alexis turned to her older sister and engaged maximum puppy dog eyes. “Please, sis?”

Allison rolled her eyes. Honestly. “Awright, fine.” Allison leveled a fork at her sister. “Ah want you ready to go the second I get back from school, though.” It was more than a little annoying that she'd have to wheel right back around and head back into town after school.

“Sure! Ah'll be waitin'.”

“‘Kay, is Shireen’s mom gonna be able to give you a ride back out here then? Ah got a pile of stuff that needs doin’ tonight.” While true, Allison simply wanted to avoid having to supervise the three preteens together for any span of time. As much as she loved her sister, she and her two friends were a veritable force of nature – the disastrous kind, more often than not.

Alexis nodded. “Uh-huh. She’ll give Sam a ride too, Ah expect.”

Allison snorted. “Well, it ain’t like the orphanage is gonna send a car for her.”

A silence fell over the table as the younger Smith siblings finished their breakfast and set out to start their morning chores.

Allison tied back her hair with a scarlet hair tie as she walked across the front yard. It was a long trudge to the giant red barn that served to house the heavy machinery that helped keep the apple harvest from rotting in the fields, a walk that left plenty of time for Allison to be alone with her thoughts. It took a great deal of hard work to keep the farm afloat, especially after a particularly bad harvest a few years back. The list of chores stretched out in Allison’s mind, much of them involving hard physical labor, and Allison wondered, not for the first time, if this was really the sort of life she wanted to live when all was said and done with school.

She stopped at a tree in the middle of the yard and watched Alexis as she skipped over to the chicken coop, humming tunelessly to herself. It’s been a long while since Ah was that carefree, she thought. She leaned a shoulder into the tree, arms folded in front of her, and she wondered idly how long it would be before her little sister realized what it truly meant to try to make a living on a farm.

Her musings were interrupted by a small explosion, followed by a loud grinding noise, which echoed across the yard from the direction of the barn. Oh no, Allison thought as she hurried over to the giant double doors and burst through them.

A thin veil of smoke was coming from the engine of the crop spraying machine. Mackenzie was furiously trying to open the hood, but the metal plate refused to budge.

Her brief concern for her brother’s safety, now allayed, quickly shifted to something else. “God dammit, Mackie, what the fuck didja do this time?”

Mackenzie’s deep bass rumble did little to mellow the heat behind his retort as he slammed his fists on the hood. “Ah didn’t do nothin’, AJ! All Ah did was try to turn the fuckin’ thing on!”

Bullshit, Allison seethed to herself as she stomped her way through the fumes over to the tool bench. “Ah swear, you project some kinda fuckin’ field, Mackenzie.” She ripped open one drawer, then another as she looked for a wrench. She seized one and turned back to the misbehaving machine. “It seems like every other week Ah’m crawlin’ up this thing’s ass tryin’ to set it straight, cuz y’done touched it funny.” She effortlessly popped the hood, only to be greeted by a dense cloud of smoke to the face. She coughed as the lid slammed back down, then turned on her brother with a scowl, wrench leveled at his face. “Ah’m half-tempted to demand supervised visits if Ah’m gonna hafta keep doin’ this.”

“Y’know what, fuck you! Maybe if you actually fixed the damn thing instead of bullshitting some jury-rig together, it wouldn’t blow up every time someone touched it!”

“Maybe if we could afford replacement parts every time you blew the fuckin’ thing up, I wouldn’t need to jury-rig it!”

“Well maybe if–”

An annoyed younger voice interrupted them. “Y’all fightin’ again?”

The older siblings whirled to regard their younger sister. Rather than admit any wrongdoing, they yelled in unison, “No!”

Alexis sighed. “Fightin’ ain’t gonna get the chores done any quicker, y’know.” She wandered towards the corner and picked up a rake and a bucket, then left again.

The elder Smith siblings shot each other a glare. Allison spoke first. “If you can haul alfalfa fer the cows, Ah’ll get this thing fixed up by th’ time yer done.”

Mackenzie continued to glare at her for another few heartbeats, then left the barn without another word. Allison gritted her teeth as she returned to the malfunctioning machine and got to work.

The morning sun was well above the horizon by the time Allison managed to coerce the sprayer into holding itself together long enough to tend to the orchard. Mackenzie had managed to make a significant dent in her chores, to his credit, but he left a few things of his own undone. There was nothing for it, though; Allison was running late. She'd already need to skip taking a shower in order to even have a prayer of making it to school on time.

She hopped into the cab of her red '88 Toyota pickup and turned the engine over. Or at least, she tried to.

Ah-HRN-HRN-HRN-HRN-click.

“No.”

Ah-HRN-HRN-HRN-HRN-click.

“Oh god, no, not today, please.” If her truck wouldn’t start, she was well and truly–

AH-HRN-HRN-HRN-HRN-HRN-HRN-click.

“No, no,” she moaned, “come on!” She slammed a palm onto the steering wheel and tried again. As she turned the key, a brief flash off in the distance towards town caught her eye, but as she tried to focus on it - AH-HRN-HRN-HRN-Ka-kruf-kruf-VROOOOOOMMMMM.

*ka-click-vwrrRR-* “I can't get no!”

Alexis was stunned. No fuckin’ way.

"No sa-tis-fac-tion!"

Allison punched the roof in exultation. “YES! Ha-ha, thank you thank you thank you!” Not only did her ancient Toyota actually start, the truck's cassette deck – which she had thought long dead and beyond repair – had returned to life as well. She gleefully turned the truck around, and as she blew down the long gravel driveway towards the highway into town, she looked at the clock. She was going to be late – really late – if she followed the speed limit.

“Welp,” she mumbled. Now that she had the Stones returned to her, she felt invincible.

With a determined grin on her face, she floored it.