Looking out my Backdoor: In my next life …

We stood side by side on the ditch bank, relaxed, Dad leaning on his irrigation shovel. The July afternoon was quiet, air hardly moving, hot, dry. I was in high school but I can’t remember which year.

A wisp of cloud lifted above the horizon. We stood together, in silence, watched the cloud gather substance. The spring rains had abandoned us that year. Here it was, mid-summer, and the earth gasped for moisture.

We tracked that cloud all the way from the cusp until nearly overhead. Time had no meaning. And we watched that little bit of hope dry up and dissipate above us, turn into nothing, disa...