This is the beginning of a promising romance novel about the prairie states during the time of … well, I don’t exactly know when this takes place. I actually don’t know much at all about the story. After all, this is only a writing prompt.

Title:  All My Distant Dark Horizons
Author:  Bob Freye

 
Marian stood on the back porch and stared off in the distance at the hazy line between grain and sky. When she could steal a moment for herself away from the interminable housework and the endless farm chores, she would stand in this spot, leaning hard against the post at the corner of the porch, and she would stare off over the fields, away from the gaunt farm buildings. She was always looking away. It was not a direction, but a destination. And she would go there someday–away. Away from the drudgery of the farm. Away from the boredom of her marriage, away from her husband, a man of few ambitions. She would leave it all, someday.

Just below her gaze, the wind roiled the prairie grass and tugged at the brawny stalks of corn. She might not have noticed, her eyes being focused on so distant a view, but the gusts pulled at her skirt and began to whip her hair across her face. She brushed the strands of hair from her eyes almost without thinking. The wind was a familiar visitor to the farm. She had grown accustomed to the snap of laundry on the line. Some days the sheets dried almost before she could hang them. The few trees that they had planted to block the snow had all grown crooked, bent in the direction of the relentless wind.

She heard a plaintive moan and turned to look toward the driveway, where the old truck creaked on its springs as it rocked back and forth, pounded by the force of the wind. It was almost human, the sound of metal forced to bend against its will. But it was a farm truck, and should be used to harsh treatment. That was a requirement of living here, and they all knew it. You had to be tough on the farm. You had to stand up to the wind and the snow and the loneliness and the endless succession of days that looked every bit like the one before.

She felt a sudden sadness and longed to turn her eyes away from the farm again, to look toward the distance. But a louder groan, longer and more mournful, drew her gaze back to the truck. It seemed to shudder, then tipped crazily up on two wheels. For a moment it teetered at an odd angle before crashing down on its side. It started to roll, then settled back, the passenger door mashed into the dry soil. Marian looked around, startled. Was the wind growing stronger? Everything else was in its place. At least the buildings. Other lighter objects were rolling across the lawn, like that old metal pail or a clothes basket left outside the night before.

Just then the dog flew passed in front of her. It gave a little yelp as it soared by, several feet off the ground, it's four paws splayed out in all directions. Marian knew at that moment that ...