Afterfall - Clark Kent

Beginning

      Smallville, Kansas - Fall, 1996
                        Heidi - 8

I wasn't supposed to be driving it.

Dad told me not to touch the tractor. He told me a hundred times. But he left the keys in the ignition, and I had driven it before,  once at my grandparent's farm. Just around the yard. Just messing around.

It didn't feel dangerous then.

This time, it did.

I pressed the brake, but it didn't catch. The tractor jerked forward harder than I expected. I panicked. My foot slipped. The wheels caught the slope at the edge of the field, and it started rolling faster.

I couldn't stop it.

That's when I saw him.

He was walking toward the barn with an armful of firewood. He saw me, dropped everything, and ran.

Not ran like a normal person. He moved fast, like the way people do in cartoons when the world slows down around them.

I was still fighting the wheel when he jumped in front of the tractor.

There was a loud, awful sound.
Something metal groaned.
Something else cracked. Then it stopped.

He hit the ground hard.

I jumped down. My knees slammed into the dirt, and I scraped them without even noticing. I ran to him, chest heaving.

I didn't know his name, I didn't know what to say.

He didn't move.

I touched his shoulder. He was breathing, but his arm was twisted funny, and his face was pale.

I started screaming.

A man came up running. He didn't stop to ask anything. He scooped the boy up and carried him toward the truck without saying a word.

I couldn't follow.

I dropped right where he had been. My body folded in on itself. My hands shook. My forehead pressed into my knees.

I couldn't stop crying.

It was my fault.

I was just playing. I wasn't thinking.

I didn't understand how he stopped it. And I didn't understand how someone that strong could still get hurt.

I just knew I messed everything up.

Someone sat down beside me.

I didn't look up. A hand touched my back. It rubbed slow, soft circles between my shoulder blades. I didn't move. I couldn't.

When I finally lifted my head, a woman was sitting next to me in the dirt. She had kind eyes and reddish blonde hair tied back in a loose braid.

I didn't know her.

She wasn't talking like strangers usually do. She wasn't asking if I hurt or scolding me or trying to make me stop crying.

She was just there.

She looked at my face for a long time. Then her mouth opened like she was about to say something and had to catch the breath first.

"Heidi Rayner," she said, barely above a whisper.

I blinked. My voice didn't work yet.

She reached out and gently moved the hair from my eyes. Her hands shook a little.

"You look just like your mama."