Life Struggles

by hillbilly_andy

the begining

Life Struggles.

I guess I’ll start out with who I am and a little about me, my name is Andy, I’m White but have some Indian in me, 24 years old, I’m 6’3, Ex-Army and I live here in Boulder Wyoming on my 60 acre farm that I work. Our farm is kind of in the middle of nowhere, up in the middle of the mountains, damn near a 30 minute drive just to get to a paved road. I love it, couldn’t think of another place that I would rather be. There’s not much for tech here, and that’s the way I like it. Most urban technology scares the shit out of me, did my dad to. That’s why he had a bunker built under the farm cabin and loaded down with anything and everything you can think of. Everything from water and air filtration systems all the way to 50 Cals, RPG’s, and rad suits. Mounds of ammunition for each weapon. just, don't ask, we have our ways. Yaaaa... He was paranoid, but we all were... for good reason to.
Me and my grandfather Rod, are all that’s left of my family. My grandmother died when I was young and most of my cousins had died in weird unexplained accidents. My brothers Jake and Vern died a few years back from the military. My sister and her children all drowned in a lake from an unfortunate car accident. My Mother and Father… they just passed away recently. My ma had thyroid cancer and it killed her last year. My Dad quickly joined her after an accident on an icy road and a Mac truck went head on into incoming traffic. That all happened right after I was given a medical discharge from the military. Said my mind wasn’t right, and it wasn’t, probably still isn’t but oh well. Now, the only things I have left are… myself, pictures, the vehicles, unfinished chores, the critters on the farm and my granddad.
To me, there is nothing else more important than family and the ones you love. Friends… that’s a different story, I’ve never been good at making friends, especially after my parents died. Don’t talk much, really only if I have to or If I have something to say, but im more of an action kind of person. Always been a scraper, a damn good one too, one of the best, never had a problem putting the hurt of someone. But animals have always been my soft spot.
I’ve always been partial to animals, I can talk to them easier, they don’t judge or hate and they don’t lie and are always there for you. They are pure. I’ve learned how to read animals, what they want, and things like that. A lot of it is about watching them, their body language and just showing them some kindness and trust. Ha, I spend so much time with them and the animals in the woods that many people think that I’m strange and stay away, or give me strange looks when we go into town for something. Many say I’m not right in the head, and they are probably right, but who cares. Fuck em. Me, I’m ok with that, I’d prefer to be left alone with the animals. In my mind, the only thing people are good for is target practice. Now don’t get the wrong idea about me, I’m no tree hugging, animal fucker. But I prefer to be with my animal friends than people. Yea, I know living on a farm means I have to slaughter hogs, and chickens and that kind of stuff, I also hunt. But it’s different, I eat it, I kill for food, for sustenance. For without it, we wouldn’t make it up here in the mountains, besides, who doesn’t love bacon? My grandpa always says, “Give back to mother nature as she gives to you my son, if you respect her and her creatures you’ll all get along great.”
But enough about that, I’ll tell ya how I came to be home, back on the farm.

I was currently an MP in the military, recently demoted, stationed in fort benning Georgia. It was one year ago when I got that call, that one call that changed me forever. I was getting dressed, getting ready to head out to check in with base and start my shift when my cell phone started to ring. I looked at it and realized who it was, my boss.
“Sargent Crouch, Who’s this?” My tired deep voice rolling out, for I was still waking up. Knowing who it was I still asked to be sure, he never calls on personal phones.
“Crouch, this is Sargent Major Bonnie we uh… fuck… just come down to the station we got something that you need to know.” His tired, frail voice, on the verge of cracking as if he had been up all night.
“Yes Sargent, be there soon as I can” I replied with eagerness, but something in the back of mind told me I wasn’t going to like what they had for me.
“Jus…just take your time boy” He replied dryly. I was about to say something but he had hung up. I stared at the phone while, I gave my head a shake to get back my train of thought. I got my things ready and hurried out the door. As I drove through the base to get the station, many thoughts began to run through my head..
The Major never calls on mah personal phone, or anyone’s fer that matter. Am I in trouble? Why did he sound like he done seen a ghost? Did I do something wrong? Did some one talk about the classified mission again, that was a year ago, why would he bring that up? What’s going on….. My mind raced through endless possibilities until I almost forgot where I was going and damn near missed my turn. As I whipped into the station, I could see the small, single level brick building, it had been painted over gray to give it a depressing almost sad feeling. I strolled through the front doors to see Sargent Major Bonnie standing at the front desk. Just the look on his eyes, sent even more questions through my brain. He’s never like this. I saw him and he saw me, I gave a quick salute and he returned it saying, “At ease.” with deadly precision.
“Sargent, follow me to my office and cut the formalities. We need to talk.” he said sternly, his face turning to a glare. I just nodded and walked with him in silence to his office. And I thought …cut the formalities? Major Bonnie is all about formalities, what the hell is goin on? My train of thought was cut short as we rounded the corner to his office. We entered, and I suddenly realized I have never been in his office. It was oddly blank and bare, no medals or trophy’s.. Nothing. Just a desk, a computer and a few large leather love seats. As I stood there looking around the room, he must of seen my confusion, and confirmed my thoughts.
“Never was the type to be colorful, or ‘show-offy’ with all mah stuff, plain and simple, it’s how I like er.” He looked at me trying to produce a small grin, but failed as soon as we made eye contact, and looked away. He stuck his hand out and gestured me to sit down on one of the comfy chairs, I quickly obliged him. As I sat, he gave out a long deep tired sigh before continuing.
“Listen, Crouch, out there I’m your C.O. but in here, I’m your friend. Now, there’s something I need to tell you.” His words caught me by surprise. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say the word friend.’ I thought worriedly,
“Major,” I replied nervously, “..what is goin on? Em I in trouble?”
“What? NO!... No. Your far from trouble boy, but I do have some bad news, it’s about your family.” I shot straight up at those words, my calm voice low and deadly, barely above a whisper. “What about my family? Are they okay?” The Sargent stopped, moving his mouth but to no avail. Finally he choked out at the speed of light. “It’s your mother, she’s dead..I’m sorry.” All I could do was sit there and stare at him wide eyed, not moving, nor even breath. The gruff man continued “… the doctors said that the cancer took her, I know how close you are with your family… I’m... very sorry. I’ve already got it setup for you to take an extended leave, you will leave this evening. You need this... You've been through a lot, that's why you chose to be demoted to an MP...Take some time, be with your family and get straight, you’ve got a 2 weeks.” I let out a deep sigh that I didn’t realize that I was holding, looked him in the eyes, said thank you and walked out feeling numb.
I boarded a plan, went home, did all the stuff people do when their loved ones die, spent 2 weeks on the farm and came back to fort benning. I never cried, never laughed, never once could look at my father and tell him ‘its ganna be alright’, I didn’t know if I was ganna be alright. 2 weeks after I came back to base, I stopped eating, stopped going to work, thought I started to her voices now and then but dismissed it, and stopped talking completely.Many people got worried about me. So Sargent Bonnie ordered a Physiological. Eval on me. After hours of questioning and many other dumb activities, they diagnosed me as ‘mentally unfit to serve’ and gave me a medical discharge and they sent me home.
It wasn’t even 2 months later when my father died, I think I did go crazy that time. After his funeral, I went to the woods and started to scream, yell, throw things, curse and swear until I ran out of tears and voice went dry. Didn’t help, but l think it does some, me and my grandpa talk about it from time to time, says its suppose to help me. I think it does to a point, but either way it still hurts.
And now, here I am now, standing on my front porch watching the sunrise. As it barely peeks over the horizon, the sky explodes with an aurora of colors, as if mother nature had hand painted it using the worlds water colors. I look across the field and the barn, and let my eyes travel about to everything that I have accomplished, built, fixed, help raise and help bring to this earth. I feel a strange sensation that today is going to be great. I take a dip from my chew can, hoist up the straps on my bibs, flick up my straw cowboy hat, and head off towards the barn to do a never ending cycle of work… my home.

I come in late at night, in from a hard day’s work, I look around and yep, sure enough, grandpa is already out, snoring away on his rocking chair from watching me out the window all day. My grandpa is getting old and can’t get around that well anymore; so basically, I do all the work around the farm. I come inside and close the door quietly as to not wake up the snoring mountain man. I go through the kitchen and into my bedroom and flop down onto my bed without taking my boots off. I was out faster than you could say ‘tired’. My sound sleeping was cut short by a large boom, a type explosion sound, almost as if someone had broken the sound barrier.
I shot up out of bed and ran to the window… nothing; I look down at my watch, 3:45 in the morning. “Damn,” I silently cursed to myself, there’s no way I’ll be able to get back to sleep. Throw on a light jacket and go outside to look for the source of the disturbance. I look around to see nothing, but over in the far off distance is a faint glow, with almost a purple hue to it, staring at it, I was confused. I’ve never seen anything like this. I looked around and grabbed the shotgun that laid next to the door, and headed into the pasture towards the trees. Staying just inside the trees to avoid….whatever it might be. I soon found myself running towards the light, getting closer as it began getting brighter, and then in a flash, the light was gone. I look around to where the light was and waited for my eyes to adjust, finally laying down was a figure of an animal. It was too dark to tell what it was but it was small, the closer I got to it the more I could tell its features.
“A mini horse? The hell you doing way out here little guy?” i said aloud in a whisper to no one in particular. As I looked around I could see that there was scorch marks on the ground around the little pony. I got closer, and put my hand on its chest, I felt that it was still breathing.
“Well, I can’t jus leave ya hear where the wolves can get at ya, come on, I’ll take ya someplace safe, Ill get ya fixed up right.” I leaned down to pick up the small creature to lift it up and carry it back to the house and was caught off guard by how oddly light it weighed. I strung the small horse over my shoulder as I held tightly onto the shotgun... Never knowing who or what will come at ya in these woods. I then turned around and walked back to the house and thought.
'What happened to that light? And where in the hell did this horse come from? Does it belong to someone? I thought I saw a brand on its rear. Who could leave a horse out in the woods to die? THAT’S HORRIBLE!!'
'Nope its the new adoption program.' wait.. what? who said that? I spun around to find no one... just the trees... "HA, if I didn't know better id think that the trees are talking to me... I really should go see a doctor, its getting worse... oh well."

The sound of footsteps on a porch reached my ears, turning and suddenly realizing that I had made it home quicker than I had thought. I must have been really deep in thought. I walk through the house and set the horse on the floor in the living room. I went to look it over and see if it was hurt, but I couldn’t find anything. A quick check and it confirmed it, was a she. As I looked at her rear and seen the strangest brand I’ve ever seen..
‘Stars and… what else is that? I’ve never seen a brand that looks like that before. Huh, maybe it’s a circus pony, after all its purple and it does have cone on its head to make it look like a unicorn.. That’s probably it.’ I tried to convince myself, but for some reason, something seemed off, like I wasn’t getting the whole picture… as I stared at her brand or painting of some kind. I got up to leave but turned around to see her shiver; I pulled the blanket off the couch and threw it over her as quietly and as neatly as I could. If I looked hard enough, It almost looked like she was smiling. I looked down at the watch and saw it was 4:32… I let out an exasperated sigh and thought to myself, ‘looks like I might as well stay up, id normally be up now anyway. Might as well..’ As I turned to walk away and head out the door I hear shuffling and then groaning, I looked over to see that the small mare might be waking up. I walked back over to her and knelt down to watch her.
“I don’t know where your from little one, but I think you is a long way from home.” I said almost teasingly
“UUgghhh, my… huh?” the mare replied… wait.. the mare replied? “What the fu…” was all I could get out before the small purple mare turned her head to look at me, her eyes focused… and started to scream.

Author's Note:

hey guys, this is my first ever story, so please let me know if ya like it, hate it or in between, i would love advice if you see i need it. critisism is always welcomed, good or bad, its the only way i can get better, let me know what you think if i should continue or just never touch a computer again. if it recevies alot of good comments and people want me to continue with it, i will. so thank you for taking the time to read this.
-Andy

Comments

[Feelsbadbro1337]

Oh boy. I can already tell this story's gonna get dislikes. xD dat grammar

Aww ain't this man the badass. Because it's totally possible to get RPG's and firkin Rad suits in the middle of fucking farmville. xD

I can literally see the accent in this writing lel.

Wait so it's only him and his grandad now? Holy shit's that's gotta suck. Get a girlfriend maaaayne you loser

If this had a romance tag I would easily be able to see the Flutters shipping through this. xD

Target practice. xD We got the nigga up in dis hood yo. Animal fuckers can be cool though lol.

I've noticed the grammar suddenly got much better though. Maybe this'll do better than I thought. People seem to hate shitty grammar lol.

TIL you can say things with deadly precision. I'm gonna use that..

Do they really say that kinda stuff in places like that? I'd think they'd wait on it being the emotional hit might hinder their work/progress. Then again I can be a stupid nigga.

Wow this is actually alot better than I expected it to be. xD The bad grammar and description for the story made it seem like it was gonna suck. This 'might' be rushed, but I can't really tell lol. At least I like it.

+1 for grabbing a shotgun out of fucking nowhere. xD

Ah so this a PoE Not an HiE? This could get really interesting.. I just realized though. I think you need to add 'human' in the tags. Being there's humans in this.

dem caps

A 'quick' check? Just how quick mountain-boy. xD

Oh I kept thinking this was Fluttershy not Twilight lol.

Holy shit he spent over an hour doing all of that. I think the time went by too fast there. xD

Lol dat mare be talkin' bro. you lucky sonbitch gettin a cute mare up in your hood. DO YOU REALIZE WHAT I WOULD DO FOR THAT!?!? HUH!?!?

Dayum. I think I'm just gonna bookmark this and stalk it occasionally. xD I think it's good and that you should continue. Then again my opinions can be vastly different from others lol.

[New Lunar]

A fellow hick is hear to say some words was not spelled right. But don't worry my first chapter the grammer was horrable like be put to death horrable! But you will improve in later chapters "Hillbilly Honor"

[hillbilly_andy]

hey yall, thanks for all the coments, i do live on a farm so ill try and get th next chapter up as soon as i can. not much spare time round here. thanks. and ill work on my gramar. its my first story sorry about that.