Novel Opening

‘star.dust n (1927) : a feeling or impression of romance, magic, or ethereality
- Webster's 9th Collegiate Dictionary

                                                                              

        The small, failing, Oklahoma farm was founded on a mistake––one single, stupid, human oversight. Consequently, the all-knowing Cosmos was untroubled by the deep wall of storm cloud that soldiered up from the south to menace the semi-decrepit farmhouse and the wilting lovers within who'd once called it their happy home. Misery must be ended in the out-of-sync hammering of their two broken hearts.

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    When he felt the spatter of rain, Bob Starr looked up and spotted the nub of a cyclone as it spun out from a thick ceiling of cloud. Soon, a long, serpentine limb dipped and reached for the earth and began to snake across the horizon, gyrating just like a carnival tent dancer he’d lusted after, way back in 1918. Undulating over his fields, her heels kicked up a wide skirt ruffle of dust and debris––some of it fencing, some of it shed roofs, but mostly, just a whole lot of peanuts.
    Scanning the rows of nutty legumes that shuddered small and pathetic in the wind, Bob threw down his hoe in disgust. These peanuts should have made him rich, a Peanut King, according to the newspaper advertisement that sparked his farming career. Instead, over the years, his lowly subjects enslaved their would-be monarch and kept him a pauper.
    “Hornswogglers!” Bob spat. The peanuts, defenseless against this charge, only trembled abjectly at his feet.      
    Bob spied a feeble peanut that, like himself, was losing its struggle to grow, and felt humiliated by the sight of it. This Tornado Dancer, on the other hand, had power, potency and vigor––everything these measly peanuts had stripped from him. Inspired by her tempestuous nature, Bob leapt on top of the hapless plant and danced a feisty flamenco, scattering green leafy bits into the dirt with tar-patched boots. "Kick hell out of them peanuts!” he cheered. For a moment there was a hint of joy and he felt almost alive.
    The Dancer seemed to spot Bob’s happy trampling and altered her course to join him. Watching her spin, dangerous and wild, Bob was reminded of those lazy-hipped, free-spirited gals from younger days that sauntered by to give a look that said pleasure was his for the picking. Snapping his fingers, he shouted Olé!––a  cry that was lost on the great wind. With one final fancy turn, he tripped, and went down for a faceful of dirt. He did not bother to get up.
    Lying across the crushed plants, Bob watched as the tornado came straight for him, his head running hot as he felt her desire to snag him up and pull him deep within her. Horrific and gorgeous, a towering birth passage in reverse, she could release him from this slow execution by backbreaking boredom that was his farmer’s life in Peanut, Oklahoma.
    An idea! He would put Destiny to the test. If he was truly meant for something bigger than peanuts, then the cyclone would spare him. But if his life’s only purpose was as a piddling cog in The Peanut Machine, then he’d rather be done with the whole damn thing right now.
    “Come on and get me!” Bob waved the Dancer in, his voice buried in the roar. “Ain’t much left no how.”
    The Dancer swirled to do his bidding as swarms of peanuts met their demise. Pulling himself to his feet, Bob shut his eyes and prepared to give himself up to the whims of Nature, and hoped his wife had paid the insurance man.