Mind the Flour Dust by Ute Orgassa
from Windmills: a PUNK NOIR Magazine series
You should have known better, I say to my mangled corpse. Not that it helps anything now, but I am angry at the me from about half an hour ago.
You call yourself a miller without knowing, without remembering essential things. Not paying attention. You can call yourself dead now. My smoldering remains don’t care. But I do. I know how I got to be this way.
It started with the damn heatwave right after the harvest was in. Days and days of oppressing heat and all that grain to mill. Old Joseph said to wait it out. There was no wind. No movement of the air. Stand still.
Our mill sails were hanging limp on the frame. I went out to the mill anyway. I wanted to show the village that I could do it, run their windmill. Showing them that I cared about them and wanted to be a reliable member of their village. So, I went. Every day. Waiting for that little breeze that might start the sails moving and the stones grinding. Old Joseph called me too eager. Nobody else cared to give an opinion.
After four days, the wind finally came. At first, just a little. The sails filled, the frame moved, and the everlasting stones began their grinding again. The pace was excruciating. I fed grains to the runner by the handful only. And the heat inside the mill made me sweaty and dizzy. Still, I prided myself on being a good miller. They would realize I was working hard for them. The mill had flour coming from the bed and that would mean bread for the village. Nobody would starve. If only the wind would pick up and the sails go around faster, I wished.
I heard a crack. Was that the frame outside? I went and looked, and yes, a stronger breeze was moving the sails. They whipped around much faster. I wiped sweat and flour dust from my face and went to fill the runner in earnest. Sacks of grain instead of a low trickle. I worked hard, the stones went humming with their grist work and the flour coming out of the chute was filling the flour sacks quickly. My muscles strained and my heart was pounding. I could have really used old Joseph at that point. As it was, I went up and down between the runner and the bed as fast as I could, earning my sweat.
The wind picked up in earnest. Gales were getting the sails going faster and faster. Our old mill was creaking and moaning with the force of the wind. It sounded like a sailing ship being tossed wildly on the ocean. Only the air was bone dry and no water was around for miles.
I don’t know how much time passed with me filling in grain and replacing the flour sacks underneath the chute. But I remember trying not to lose my footing on the steps from the lower level to the upper one on account of all the dust that had settled there. I could not slow down now.
I wiped my face again. More dust and something else. Black dots. A lot of them. Thunder flies. Those pesky pests that show up whenever a thunderstorm comes. I did not pay attention to what they meant. I only saw that they were on my clothes as well and hurried to close the flour sacks, so the insects would not fall into them. I should have left right then and there.
A loud rumble overpowered every other noise in the mill for a moment. Thunder. Close by. But no rain. Still, I didn’t put two and two together. Still, I worked on my own demise. Getting flour dust in my eyes as I hurried on. Working frantically to fill as many sacks as I could. I should have stopped to think for a second. But I didn’t. I was the new miller, wasn’t I? Proving myself and making sure the village was proud of me. As proud as I needed them to be.
I practically slid down the stairs to get from the runner to the flour sacks underneath the bed. I felt it on my thumb before I saw it, the tiny prick of a spark. The spark that blew the whole mill to pieces. Thankfully the rain started soon after, so nobody else got hurt. Now I, in my ghostly presence, stand here with old Joseph, looking at the debris. Both of us marveling in our own ways at what an idiot I was.
This story appears as part of Windmills, a PUNK NOIR Magazine series.
Bio
Ute Orgassa was born and raised in Germany. She now lives with her family in the Bay Area. Her short stories have been published by Shortwave Media, Haunted Word, Alternative Milk, Punk Noir, Alien Buddha, and Infested. Her play A Different Track was produced by Awkward Pigeons Theater.
PUNK NOIR, the online literary and arts magazine that looks at the world at its most askew, casting a bloodshot eye over the written word, film, music, television and more.
Subscribe for a regular dose of hard-boiled flash fiction, straight to your inbox.