A few miles up from the creek mouth, untouched by the ocean’s salty backwash, an expanse of farmland sprawled between two hills, hills that Samantha Kane liked to call mountains but Daddy said didn’t quite qualify. He claimed to know land. Nothing made him happier than perfectly flat dirt and perfectly straight rows. He said the smallest divot led to uneven watering, which led to unevenly ruined crops and an unevenly clothed family.

Swollen and hollowed land reminded Sam of the bulges and dips on bodies. And if humans and critters have them, why couldn’t the ground? Although, one time she did see a broken arm under the monkey bars, loosely attached to Mike’s body. That was unpleasant, and an oily pain heated her spine whenever she came across an animal carcass on her way out to the roadside chalkboard.

Sam agreed her mountains were hills only in the right light—only when the gaps between the trunk bases revealed patches of sky way down the horizon line. And when that happened, it was like digging in the creek mud and seeing the sediment layers, like pulling the cooked meat out of the fridge and playing with the separated fat. Of course, the trees didn’t drip to the earth like the stuff warmed by her hands. No, the trees stuck out of the hill like the peg people jammed into The Game of Life’s minivans.

Sam played Life on the well-splintered table during her summertime shifts at the farmstand. Occasionally, Tuckins (a sucker for the farm’s plums) ducked in for a spin. He played the red minivan. All the other colors were Sam’s.

“I don’t know about you, Tuckins, but one life doesn’t seem like enough.” She married in one, stayed single in another; but she always left the farm.

She liked that Tuckins didn’t spew platitudes about making the most of her real life. Tuckins simply smiled, said, “I know, kiddo,” spun the wheel, and watched it go round. Then he moved his red minivan piece, took the fake money from his wallet, paid his college tuition, took the real money from his wallet, paid for the plums, watched Sam take her turn, exchanged condolences about their dwindling fortunes, and went on his way.

It wasn’t strictly part of her farmstand duties, but Sam liked examining the book covers people donated. She searched for pretty fonts and snippets of bare skin. Reading more than three pages of grown-up books felt like splashing into the creek’s belly after heavy rains. The words funneled her head full of sand, and spinning the Life wheel between chores let out only a few granules at a time. Sam didn’t expect anyone to understand this. The creek did, though.

Lying there, greeting the millions of molecules sweeping by, Sam wondered if they wrestled for the middle of the stream the way people at school tunneled for the center of the lunch line. Did they know the outliers were likelier to be sloughed toward the back and left behind? The water trying to cut corners tripped on the rocks and lay pinned under the sun, waiting for evaporation to take them to their next form. Sam wanted to ask the dying molecules if they were bitter. But what if they weren’t and spent their last moments pondering an emotion they hadn’t yet experienced? So Sam stayed there as long as she could, waving to the perceived lucky ones and keeping her thoughts from the lonesome.

Soon she had to crawl into the water. There wasn’t even room in her word-filled head to feel guilty for interfering in the molecules’ fate, not when they weaseled into her ears, extracted the words, and washed them away. Would the words scatter and float up into the sky out of order? Did the ones carrying her thoughts travel slower? Would someone downriver catch them? Would they run ashore? Or would they make it to the ocean? Infused water was all the rage at school last year. Mineral-infused. Fruit-infused. Natural Flavor-infused. How many of these held more than expected? Had people upstream spilled in their knowledge or maybe the bug-killing juices Daddy bemoaned? How much had soaked into the ground? Into her skin?

Sam pulled her head out and listened to the last question dribble out of her ears. Was absorbing into a farm girl’s shirt an honorable end? The water trickling down her face seemed to say yes.

Maggie Maize is a writer who enjoys spinning compost and whispering to her seedlings. She earned a BFA in writing from Savannah College of Art and Design and a Novel Writing Certificate from Stanford Continuing Studies. Her writing has appeared in Post Road Magazine, Funicular Magazine, and more.