The Accident

By Jacob Hilton

Blaine died in the grain bin. On a blistering summer day, your father shoves you up the ladder, his heavy hands at your heels, to show you where it happened. The metal rungs burn your palms as you climb. At the top, you brace yourself against the pitch as your father clambers up the sloped roof to the hatch. A hot wind rakes the top of the cornfields. From here you can see all the way to Marysville. With the hatch open, your father motions for you. You obey. He grabs a fistful of the back of your shirt as if you are one of the farm kittens and leans you over the opening. The inside of the grain bin, drained now of its contents, is all shadows, even in the sunlight. You can barely see to the bottom, where the long arm of the unloading auger rests. Your father says, “In all my years of growing up here, living here, and working this land, I never saw a boy so stupid and useless as your brother. He’s dead now, but you’re alive, you understand?” You picture him now, your beanpole of an older brother: who liked to help your mother cook; who taught you all the words to his favorite Bowie songs; who noted in a journal every wild flower and grass and shrub that sprung up along the country lanes; and who told you once, in all seriousness, that he was made of starlight (with your whole heart you believed him). You think of him now and you shudder in your father’s grip as you imagine what it must have been like for him to suffocate under all that weight, in all that darkness.

—

About Jacob Hilton

Hilton was born and raised in Central Illinois. He holds an M.A. in English and Creative Writing from Ohio University and a Ph.D. in English and Creative Writing from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His nonfiction has appeared in Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction. Currently, he teaches English at Eureka College.