Is what I'm working on now. A stand-alone story & novel chapter, about 7k words. Here's the 650 word opening.
ROMANCE, OK.
An American Fairytale
Roy J. Parbo had wrestled no bulls, nor beat a man senseless in a bar brabble. No war hero, young Roy never served his country; his enlistment papers stamped 4-F because of a childhood bout with rheumatic fever that left him with a sensitive ticker. But Roy J. Parbo held the title of Toughest Man in Town, because for thirteen solid years he did what no other Oklahoman would do on a bet––he delivered the Romance mail.
Romance, Oklahoma. Whoever named the tiny climate-cursed hamlet must’ve hoped a sentimental moniker would change the place, but no such luck, for Romance was the spot where bad weather took a holiday. Every freezing, butt-numbing gale that blew from the north and each sweltering, head-mopping, tropical storm that slogged up from the south, and all the hammering hailstorms and desiccating droughts and sleety ices and rains of toads and whirling dusty haboobs that passed nearby all made sure to visit Romance. Tornadoes held annual conventions there. Dregs of hurricanes, weary from long ocean crossings, settled over Romance to wring themselves dry as they churned up mudslides and drowned man and beast before blithely evaporating into the blue across the county line. Folks said the only weathery thing to escape Romance was a rainbow.
The perpetual storms that beat hell out of Romance left it homely enough to curdle milk. Trees, gnarled and scraggly with ratty, splotched leaves struggled fruitlessly year to year. Roses, nary a petal to their name, bowed heavy with blooms of massive thorns and lurked sinister near crabgrass lawns. Blistered-skin buildings with scrap-tin scalps stood so unperpendicular to their foundations that handymen laughed and threw away their levels. Fences wavered like laundry on a line and rarely stood long enough to keep anything fenced. Signs were faded ghosts of advertisement that hung groaning and creaking from rusty chains. Streets, pockmarked like the moon with perfunctory asphalt patches, were a rough ride, even on the best suspension. Barnyard animals shuffled listless and dull, bespeckled with bald spots where mighty winds had carried off fur and feather. Dogs skulked with out-of-service tails, and cats purred with a malevolent growl. Even the Romance Baptist Church was not spared––its metal cross blown over so that it leaned forty-five degrees to the left of the roof peak, the icon of Christ now an ungodly X that hovered precariously above the congregation.
The Romancers, understandably, did not live up to their name either. The weather bullied most into a scurrilous, curmudgeonly lot, and were generally considered unfit companions for any reasonable person. Their town was known as a haven for those dedicated to a life of misery and complaint. Well-meaning relatives from temperate states such as California and Maryland would sometimes invite their unfortunate Oklahoma kin to visit, hoping a sunny environment might sweeten-up their spirits and salty speech. But Romancers were nervous in these foreign worlds. Drop a Romancer into a pleasant seventy-two degree day surrounded by petaled roses, wag-tailed dogs and giggling children and a dark unease would soon creep in. A few days of chirping birdies and badminton and Romancers were overcome with a debilitating, speechless depression that replaced the usual piss and moan that kept them sprightly and alive. Begging off with feigned attacks of pernicious chilblains and such, they’d scuttle safely home. These charity vacations were a veritable flop on flat water.
This cockeyed nature of Romance gave it a rare insulation not commonly found beyond places like the Gobi Desert or Finland. Capitalistic reasons aside, few folks outside Romance ever wanted in, and Romancers had little motivation to leave. This meant little trade in new genetic material for the town’s marriageable population and sparse pickins’ where physical affection was concerned. At milking and feeding time, cows kept a watchful eye and a tucked tail.
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