Tractor

By Nicole Brogdon

We tall girls strode into the VFW Hall. “Here comes the basketball team,” someone drawled. Boys in tight Wranglers wore their belt buckles like badges, gliding cowgirls over sawdust. 4H kids who raised prize pigs, they stomped one foot, “Wanna dance?” Black-haired Dan encircled my waist, “Ring of Fire,” soaring. “What do you like?” I asked. “Riding my John Deere tractor.” That sunburnt grin…. I liked reading. Dan sailed me round, strobe lights streaking my dizzy, hair-sprayed head. Leaning me against a wall, his palms spreading like bodies over mine, he kissed me, heat driving over me like a tractor.

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Nicole Brogdon is an Austin TX trauma therapist interested in strugglers and stories, with fiction in Vestal Review, Cleaver, Flash Frontier, Bending Genres, Bright Flash, SoFloPoJo, Cafe Irreal, 101Words, Centifictionist, etc. Best Microfiction 2024, and Smokelong Microfiction Finalist 2024. Twitter NBrogdonWrites! & nbrogdonwrites.blusky.social.