documentation

I'm interested in documenting a story.  I don't know all the details.

Catherine and Earl liked to dance.  They lived on a farm in central South Dakota.

Earl didn't really like to dance: he preferred to get drunk and drive home and crash his car.  But that was another time where such things were, if not accepted, then allowed.

Anyway, so I imagine:


Catherine got her dress on, looking like a bad-ass farm mother ready to go dancing.  Green dress down passed her knees; Earl would have been wearing a suit.

It's Saturday evening, and they are standing in front of a screened, open window.  A light breeze blows in, ruffling the curtains that had been pulled to the side.  Those curtains move slowly back and forth, very slowly, slowly ruffling.

Judy, their daughter, is standing in the kitchen watching them.  She must have been seven or eight.  They pose for her, Earl putting his arm around Catherine, and Catherine with her hands folded neatly in front of her.

A second passes, or maybe two, and the breeze--a true breeze, complete with light flecks and soft noise--flows in, ruffling the said curtains.

And then something else: a water hose, finger positioned perfectly over the nozzle, sprays with such a force that it drenches Catherine (but not Earl).  It continues for just a second, through the screened window, a straightshot powerdrive waterfall through the window.  She throws her hands up and says something--something, I'm not sure what.

It was their son Bill.  He's little.

Catherine runs outside.  Bill runs from her.  She chases him, green dress clinging to her.  They run run run into the long grasses with the thick stems, and she pushes him to the ground.  She rips a handful of long grass from the ground and starts whipping him with it, harder, faster, until he's red and sore and hurt.