Locust House Variations, A Fiction Column by Adam Gnade, “the Rib Crib”

Winter fields passing—tawny yellow, a grayboard farmhouse leaning to ruin, bare trees, black powerlines veining the sky, a dead world but the bluest of skies.

A dead world. Yeah. But spring is coming.

Spring, when all of this will jump back to life. It will return with a sweet vitality that will surprise you.

Here in the middle of the map, there is something courageous about spring. But of course seasons don’t have courage or a lack of it. This doesn’t matter. It’s “courageous spring” because we need it, because we put so much hope and belief in it.

This I ask of the universe—give us spring, give us something to believe in, to hope about. Because if you don’t have something to look forward to? That’s when you start thinking shit like, “What’s the use?” I never want to ask myself “What’s the use?” again. I want the use to be known, to be present, a thing to grab onto and stay afloat with when the river casts to a surge.