Olaf's Endless Duel: Warriors of the Beyond

"Look at this."

I heard the crunching of leaves behind me as Olga walked over to my side. She put her hand on my shoulder. "It's gorgeous, isn't it?"

"Yeah. It is." I sighed as I looked up at the tall rows of corn plants in front of us. They swayed in the wind and rustled their leaves, making for a pleasing sound.

"I never thought we'd have enough rain this year," I said, looking up at the clouds rolling in from the north. "But look at those ears!"

Olga tore one from the stalk and handed it to me with a smile on her face. My stomach growled as I took a bite. The sweetness burst across my tongue, just like I remembered it tasting when we were kids. Then, I spit it out.

"What?" Olga asked. "Is something wrong?" She peered down at the cob in my hand and back up at my face with a frown on hers. "What? A bug?"

I shook my head and spat again, trying to rid my mouth of that horrible taste.

"No... no bugs..." I muttered between clenched teeth. "Just... not ripe yet..."

Olga rolled her eyes and snatched the cob from my hands. She bit into it with a flourish, chewing happily for a moment before spitting it out onto the grass below them. As she wiped her mouth off with her sleeve, she glared up at me with a scowl on her face that made me laugh out loud despite myself.

"What? Is there something wrong with them?" she demanded hotly after she regained her composure. "You're supposed to spit them out if they're not ripe! You don't eat them!" The laughter died abruptly in my throat. "That's what they teach you in school these days?" she continued venomously. "They gave you all that education and you can't even eat corn?"

I stared down at the ground without replying, wiping tears away from my eyes as she continued to glare over me with an expression of disgust written across hers. I had forgotten how much she loved teasing me when we were kids, how much fun she had making me feel bad about things, how much pleasure she got out of bullying me until someone broke it up or until I snapped and hit her with something... but then again, that was back then, before our parents died and everything changed for us both... before we grew up together into adults who didn't know each other anymore... before we lost our farm to that awful loan shark and had to move here to live with her sister Maria who was allergic to everything except cats... oh yeah... Maria loved cats... especially black ones... especially ones whose names started with Rrrrrrravennnn....

"What's going on out here?" Maria's voice interrupted the uncomfortable silence that was filling the air between Olga and myself as she stepped through the front door onto the porch behind us carrying a tray stacked high with glasses filled with apple cider. Her hands were smeared with black soot and some of it was smudged across her cheeks and forehead where it glistened wetly in the sunlight breaking through breaks in the clouds above us as she stood in front of us smiling brightly down at us both through lopsided spectacles perched on her nose as though they were windows into another world entirely separate from ours and far more interesting than this one could ever hope to be by comparison... but then again, Maria always did have a tendency toward being strange sometimes so maybe I shouldn't judge people based on their appearances too quickly... after all, who am I to talk? My hair is turning gray around my temples these days just like Olga's is starting to do around hers... but more importantly than age taking its toll on our appearances is what happened inside once you get passed our outer shells: Olga keeps telling herself that we'll finally be rich again even though everything keeps getting worse while all I can think about is what if we never were in the first place?