It would settle over the landscape, its perfumed touch sedating everything. The tree branches swayed in the breeze. The water lazily trickled along the riverbank. Mother would find herself sprawled on the back veranda, one hand outstreched, hanging like the willow bays; the other laying on her saturated forehead.
The heat would take over every responsive element of your body. Reaction time, realization, hunger. I remember the screams, but only faintly. The weather was much too unbearable, and even if that heavy air was nonexistant, I doubt anyone would have done anything to stop the horrors that were occuring just past the magnolia grove, down by the fields.
Mother just groaned, totally unmoved by the animalistic cries echoing across the many acres. A petal fell from a tree and landed on her caked skin, and she simply took a slow, long sip from the sweating glass of iced tea.
Her eyes slowly shut, as did mine, but the crimson stains remained on the barn wall, and the whip continues to hang in Father’s shed.