This One Comes With its own set of Obstacles, Said the Real Estate Agent by Lisa Thornton
Updated: Sep 15, 2025
When it’s misty, you’re likely to spot deer in the cemetery. The sound of the train travels through the air and arrives at your windows louder, amplitudes leaping on water molecules, I guess. I think I prefer the sunshine, the way I think I prefer chocolate to vanilla and parties to rest but then the mist rolls in and I am reminded.
You said there was no way you’d live in a small town, not with politics what they are. But the farmhouse had one whole acre, and you didn’t have anywhere to paint. I remember when you growled lyrics into a microphone and hung onto lampposts at 4 in the afternoon after too much Jägermeister. Now you walk to the Steaming Bean and ask me if I want soy or cow’s milk.
You said it didn’t matter that the house was falling down. You said the foundation was strong. And out here it’s either a corn year or a bean year and nothing about the flat-as-a-pancake terrain allows anything to sneak up on you.
When it’s misty, cats weave in and out of the fenceposts like specters in a horror movie. We bring our bleacher chairs to football. When we walk up the long lane after dinner, the tink of the softball on aluminum bats soars all the way from the park to the horse barn.
We ignore the hateful yard signs and tell ourselves we belong here. They can’t have the country, you whisper as we saunter past the garage with the banner that says Eternal Vigilance, No Fear. The man at the sandwich shop who also works at the gas station by the highway recognizes us now. We order two footlongs and eat them by the lake. Maybe we’re hiding. Maybe we deserve this.
Author's Note:
I take the canoe on the lake early morning with my family to feel nothing but joy. Oars in the soft water, egrets in dead trees along the shore who startle into flight. I go to the Art Institute in Chicago and stand in front of The Song of the Lark by Jules Breton (https://www.artic.edu/artworks/94841/the-song-of-the-lark). The girl in the painting feels like a sister to me (she needs visiting regularly). And I pull up Bob Dylan’s Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnWXunQhLXY) and listen while alone in my car. It reminds me that someone, somewhere, felt like I do.
Lisa Thornton is a writer and nurse. She has stories in SmokeLong Quarterly, New World Writing, The Cincinnati Review, and other magazines. Her work has been nominated for the Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. She lives in Illinois and can be found on Bluesky and Instagram @thorntonforreal.
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