Word Count: 36,074
Summary of Events:
Axel got up and checked his social media account — which he hadn't done the night before on account of tiredness — only to get upset by seeing posts by his former girlfriend flaunting her new boyfriend as if to deliberately incite him. Madeleine was reclining in the hammock Erik had gotten as an anniversary gift for her when she heard a frightful noise like a metal building collapsing; when she called Erik he reassured her that he was fine. Axel, having dumped a load of silage at the farm, headed south to the field they were working on to load up again, observing the fields around him as he made his way there . . .
Excerpt of the Day:
As that fourth field came into view, Axel saw something else and a dread horror came over him.
He immediately started gearing down; it appeared an accident had happened, and the closer he got, the clearer it became.
A large, mangled wreckage was out in the middle of the field, there was a damaged semi truck in the middle of the intersection, and there was more carnage toward Uncle Morten’s barley field that drew expletives from Axel’s mouth has the horror started to reach to his every neurone.
Bringing his truck to a full stop, Axel immediately put on the hazard lights and swore as he took in the damage.
A big truck, such as the type he’d be driving once they started hauling grain — often called a semi-truck in North America, less commonly called a highway tractor, which was mostly an engine and a hitch that was not made, like pickup trucks, to drive on its own, but built to haul, not unlike farm tractors — was pointed to the west and damaged, with shattered windows and an unnaturally twisted rear frame where the large hitch was.
A long, flat trailer was twisted, looking like it’d been wrenched from the hitch by the force of the impact, as well as having some more significant damage toward its rear end, was further into the field, but furthest into the field was a great, big pile of bent and twisted metal, with gaping openings where large windows would’ve been, and big, heavy-treaded tractor tires.
The colour of the paint on the piece of wreckage was green; and not just any green either, but John Deere green, which was the most grass-tinted shade of green used for any farm machinery — Claas also used green, but theirs was more of a lime green, and it was paired with a grey-white and red, while John Deere’s green was paired with lemon yellow.
Uncle Morten used exclusively John Deere tractors. Not all the implements he used were John Deere, but all the tractors were.
This hulking wreck in the field, however, wasn’t a tractor of the sort that pulled implements or hauled things; based on its overall rectangular shape, the fact that both the front and rear tires were coarsely treaded with the typical herringbone tread, and the front tires being larger than the rear ones, proved the ruin in the field was a combine harvester, such as commanded nearly half a million dollars brand new.
Axel knew where the combine harvester was to have gone, it was proved by the still-visible logo on the door of the truck, which was that of the John Deere dealer in Swift Current, from which Uncle Morten had just bought a third combine in July.
Having not stocked up on combines just yet, the dealer had needed to wait for one to be shipped from the US, and Uncle Morten had reported to Axel not that long ago that the combine would be on the farm by the weekend; based on this wreckage, however, that was not going to be the case.
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