Whispering Falls, Excerpt Two

Lucy Dartsun got out of town once and went to the big city for two years.

She signed up to work for a Big Important Corporation. Lucy worked with people who went to Baylor, SMU, and colleges on both the east and west coast. They weren’t all that. She headed out to another big city for a few years and found the traffic to be unbearable. So when Aunt Agnes got sick, Lucy Dartsun came back to Whispering Falls to help her, having no idea that life would take hold and nature would rise up, trap her and keep her here until the day she took her last breath.
“I remember reading,” she said to Aunt Agnes, “that back in 1984, Whispering Falls was listed as the most Average City in the United States.”
“Yeah, that’s probably right,” said Agnes. She was staring at Mr. Martin walking onto his front porch.
“Average food, average folks, below average doctors,” muttered Agnes. She was in a current dispute with her heart doctor who had put salt on the Forbidden Food list. She liked bacon, and bacon was…salty.
“Are you pouting Aunt Agnes? What are you looking at?”
“Mr. Martin is out and about; he needs to take it easy,” she replied.
“Ya think, what was it he had?”
“A lung transplant, a double lung transplant, actually…” Agnes said.
“Wow, I didn’t know they could do that,” said Lucy.
“See, now I don’t have to stop smoking,” said Aunt Agnes, brightening up.
“Yeah, what did the heart doctor say about that?” asked Lucy.
“Oh, are you kidding? I told him I quit years ago,” smiled Aunt Agnes.
“Aunt Agnes! Unreal, simply unreal!”