What do you know?

I got into a voice working on a short piece. A friend and I are working on some writing exercises together. Our first item is a short, tight piece involving a man and woman who have some relationship -- either family or sexual.

I floundered around for ideas, but the one I couldn't keep out of my head was simple and straightforward. I think it'll become part of a larger piece I put together. It's about a guy who comes back to Iowa because his Dad's been missing for months, and he needs to put his Dad's things in order. I'm still working on even the very short vignette, but I surprised myself with some details:

The refrigerator thrummed needlessly. Mitch stood, scratching his torso beneath his wrinkled white tee, staring at the empty wire racks. Only a paper plate sprinkled with baking soda remained. His sister Julia had cleaned the house in the summer, when the rotten things within had shriveled, forgotten and neglected in those strange weeks when everyone they knew trekked through the spring mud expecting any moment to find Charlie Hammond’s dead body. When they all stopped looking Mitch went back to work and Julia spent a day throwing out her father’s foil-covered Tupperware filled with mold and muck and pouring out a slush of milk that curled in her nostrils and reached down to yank at her insides. She drank one of her daddy’s last beers -- a Michelob Light --  alone, sobbing on the kitchen floor until school let out for the day.