Rachel Winnenhope had finally managed to achieve her lifelong dream. After decades of unremarkable, yet excruciatingly hard and boring work, Rachel had saved enough coin to buy the countryside ranch of her fantasies. She could finally get herself and her partner out of the metropolis they toiled through day after day. Her partner was named Alex, and they really wanted to get out of the city and be done with it for good. Alex was one of those people who earned a living without anyone knowing how.
When Rachel surprised Alex with the news that they’d be ranchers within a few months, both of their eyes welled with tears of sweet, candy-like relief. No longer would they suffer the daily grind, the wretched two hour commute, or the wall to wall neighbors, packed-in tighter than extra-salted GMO farm-raised sardines in a can. There were even saltier personalities outside their can; loud screaming fights occurred all night in their district, dogs barked as if their owners were attacked (which some were), and parrots pierced eardrums with their obnoxious squawks.
The tears didn’t stop flowing, and after a few weeks of searching on Villow for homesteads in the country, Rachel found her ranch. It looked perfect, exactly what she had pictured, and she knew Alex would love it, too. Her eyes darted back and forth between the home’s description, the photos of the property, and the hefty acreage count. She clicked “buy it now,” and that was that, she was a rancher.
Rachel wasn’t dumb, so she had thought ahead and saved more than enough money to also pay for professional movers to take their things to the ranch. Rachel and Alex both happily quit their jobs without notice, celebrated at a fancy hotel bar over some cognac, and flipped off the entire city from one of their favorite lofty vantage points.
The next morning, Rachel and Alex left their past lives without saying goodbye. The pair hopped on the hyperloop for thirty minutes, and then found themselves thousands of miles away in the town of Applechop Berm. The place was gorgeous, exactly what you’d expect of a classic countryside downtown. Spotless white buildings with scarlet red shutters lined the dirt road, eroded copper gas lamps speckled the brick sidewalks, and at the end of mainstreet stood an immaculate chapel directly beside a somewhat threatening town hall.
Their car was waiting for them at the station’s parking lot, left with care by the moving company. They hopped in the car, pulled out the map, and headed out to their massive new farm. After passing two general stores and making a wrong turn at the Old War statue, Rachel found herself on the correct street, and she began scanning for her new address. The couple were in awe at the vast expanses between the properties, each driveway almost a mile apart from each other, only a small wooden sign marking the properties with an address.
Then she saw it, her glorious new address on her picturesque country road, her fantasies were quickly becoming reality. She woke up Alex, they kissed, and then Rachel made a right turn in between two flawless willow trees standing tall and proud. It was joyous ecstasy, tears flowed from her eyes as she assessed and adored her land. And it was her land. She loved Alex, and she would gladly share the ranch until the day she died... But she had made this a reality all on her own, and she was going to damn well enjoy it.
After twenty minutes of driving, she started to get worried. Alex had fallen asleep again, so she wasn’t able to express her nervousness… How far down this driveway was the ranch? After thirty more minutes of driving, she got out of the car and sobbed, slamming her hand on the hood of the car. Ten minutes later, she was back in the car, sadness released and anger settling in comfortably. Rachel’s face was a scowl of gritted teeth and furrowed brows, her lips jutted-out far and nostrils wide.
After another hour of driving, the ceiling of their car was torn to shreds. Her nails easily sliced through the fabric when she started digging as hard as she physically could. She couldn’t comprehend how this was classified as “within walking distance” of the town. They turned a corner and finally saw it, the beautiful ranch lay bewitchingly before them. It was pure Americana, the exact farmhouse that you would see on any quilt in any boring boutique in the country. This moment of curiosity and delight nearly made Rachel forget her anger of how far the house was from the main road.
Instead of remembering the anger of the drive, all thoughts were ejected from her head when she heard an extremely loud thud. The banging continued, a constant out-of-rhythm barrage of crunching, cracking, splintering, metallic bonging, and sharp shattering noises. Rachel pulled the car a little further ahead, and what she saw dropped her stomach lower than she knew it could go.
A ring of thirteen donkeys circled a large pile of junk, facing outward as their hindquarters bucked backwards in unison, kicking their legs as hard as they physically could into the heap of trash. Rachel knew this heap of trash, and it was all of their worldly possessions. She had requested that the movers leave their things in secure crates outside of the residence, and now it was all being destroyed for seemingly no reason.
The donkeys wore blank expressions as they demolished every family photo, each piece of furniture, all of their electronics and appliances… Everything the couple had ever owned was pulverized before Rachel’s eyes by a drove of dullard donkeys. She stared in horror as she watched her favorite vase get broken to pieces, the donkey responsible continuing to kick in reverse at full power. Alex let out a faint snore, the thundering noises failing to rouse the deep sleeper.
Rachel snapped out of her misery and floored the gas pedal, heading straight towards the commotion. She honked the horn wildly and jerked the wheel left and right, doing everything in her power to scare them off. They didn’t budge. Over the next few hours, with not a single glance towards her beautiful new farmhouse, Rachel tried numerous ways of stopping the donkeys. But nothing could stop their destruction, until finally there was nothing left to destroy.
Once the pile had become a fine gray powder, the donkeys each walked forwards and away from the wreckage in a completely straight line, never to deviate from their exact trajectory. They looked shy as they walked away, blushing and each tilting their head towards Rachel. Once they were all out of view, Alex woke up and yawned. Rachel couldn’t believe she hadn’t taken a video of the rampage, and correctly assumed Alex was suspicious of her story that “everything they owned” had been “brutally kicked” by “mules” whilst asleep.
Over the next few weeks, Rachel and Alex tried to make peace and find happiness on the ranch. They found that due to relentless gerrymandering, this property was only connected to the town of Applechop Berm through dirty politics, as the local government knew exactly who the previous owner’s of this farmstead would vote for. Even though the house was over 85 miles away from the town, it was still fair game for Villow to list it as “centrally located.”
The couple were also served with a notice by the town hall that they needed to fence-in their entire fifty-four thousand acre property. When Rachel inquired with local craftsmen about building the required oaken-post fence, they scoffed in her face after hearing which property she needed fenced. After a lot of consideration, and lying to herself, Rachel decided she could do the work on her own.
After one year of hauling fence posts back and forth for 8 hours a day in her sedan, Rachel never wanted to see that hardware store or its greedy owner again. Each time she returned, the price of the poles had increased. For that entire year, she hadn’t even begun installing the oaken-posts, she only had time for accumulation and sleep. She finally had the wood she needed, and after a late night of zoning paperwork, geometry, and endless calculations, Rachel found she’d need twelve years to finish the fence on her own.
And it would be on her own, because there was no help to be had. Alex slept all day, and no amount of begging or shaking would awaken the oaf. So Rachel worked hard, trekking across her land with the oak on her back, mounting the poles one by one. After three weeks of this miserable work, she woke up in the middle of the night to deep, rumbling bass beats. This shocked her, because with how hard she was working, literally nothing could wake her. She didn’t dream, either.
When she checked outside, her brain quivered as she saw the storefront of her favorite bar from back in the city in her barnyard. Rachel slapped her face to wake up, but unfortunately for her, she was already awake. She walked up to the front door of the bar, the blue neon lighting her face as she looked up at the sign. “Doriani’s Tavern,” it read, just like it did in her old neighborhood. She took a deep breath and walked in, unsure and skeptical.
She wondered why every face looked at her, though she did just come into a crowded bar wearing her classic Americana nightgown and matching bonnet. She ignored the crowd and saw Alex laughing and drinking at the bar, the club music so blaringly loud that it must have been college night or something worse. She approached Alex, confused, and tried to parse out what was happening and how this bar was thousands of miles away from where it belonged. Alex smiled, took Rachel’s arm, and slowly started walking her away from the packed barstools.
“Look, Rachel… I don’t want this place, and I am done seeing you work and be exhausted all of the time. I just don’t want to be out here anymore. However, since I was young, I’ve had powers. So I am just going to be back in the city with you from now on. Bye,” said Alex, smugly opening the bar door and gently guiding her back onto the ranch’s barnyard.
Rachel turned back towards the bar, looking through the windows as they slowly began to fade away. She saw Alex return to the bar, put an arm around Rachel, and kiss her. Doriani’s Tavern disappeared, and Rachel kept staring at where it had stood for the remainder of the night. In the morning she looked far older, and she walked to an old willow stump on her property, and took a seat.
“I ain’t building that fence. I’ve lived on this here ranch my entire life, and ain’t no government gonna tell me what to do. Willenhope Ranch has stood here since the Old War, and I ain’t gonna change it. As a matter of fact, this ol’ lady has been thinking about moving to the city…” said Rachel, pondering a move she’d always dreamed about.
