Bartleby's Miracle Tonic Psychochronograph: Short Fiction Bursts

Don’t worry, this isn’t Groundhog’s Day. I’ve decided to upload audio versions of my short fiction so you can enjoy them podcast-style. This required re-posting this story. In between each newsletter, I’ll be sharing some of my short form writing. Some, like this one, will be older. Some will be new. The first one is, in some ways, a special one.
Bartleby’s Miracle Tonic
Crik-crik-crik-crik-clak-crik-crik
I listened for this sound. I listened with my whole body. Do you know that sort of listening, where you try to open yourself wide as if trying to summon some other senses beyond the ones that are failing you? I clutched the rope with all my might, its coarse, twined strands digging into the flesh of my hands, biting with every lurch and twist. I held on for dear life, and wished my hands were calloused again. Ahead, somewhere, was Bartleby’s wagon. Brown dust stung my eyes, impossibly thick. I could not see the end of my arms, though of course I could feel them. I could not see the wagon, though I could hear it. I tried to conjure the picture of it in my mind, as though it might make it easier to follow. I was so afraid. So afraid I’d be lost to the dust. I imagined the wheels, cracked red paint flaking from the split wood of the spokes. Crik-crik-crik-clak-crik. They rhythm of them was comforting, as was the discordant sound where the forward left wheel rim had been broken and hastily mended.
I tasted the dust. Grit and earth in my mouth. I spat it out, but only succeeded in swallowing more. Concentrate on the wagon, I told myself. I imagined it not as it is, but as it must have been long before I first saw it. Bold colors blazing, apple red and evergreen; ornate swirls and decorations. On the center of each side, inscribed in grand letters upon a swirling yellow-painted banner: “Bartleby’s Miracle Tonic.” I was crying now, involuntarily. Dispassionate tears flowed from my reddened eyes. Such tears always feel strange, as if someone else were crying them. Wet and trickling and mixing with the dust to form rivers of brown sludge on my face; products of basic physical reactions to the foreign agents in my eyes.
“You still alive back there, m’boy?” Bartleby’s voice called out from the brown mass before me. There was no real concern in his voice. But then, I expected none. I did not call out, nor attempted any sort of response, already struggling with the taste of the storm in my mouth. Bartleby did not bother to ask again. After what seemed like hours of struggling through the dust storm, it was over. I coughed and spat and rinsed my eyes out with the canteen.
“Now don’t you go wastin’ that water, boy. You’ll wish you had it ‘fore long.” I eyed him miserably. He laughed–his nasty, phlegmy laugh–before taking a deep swig of his own canteen. It was not filled with water, but rather liquids of a harsher temperament.
“Why couldn’t we have just stopped?” I spat on the ground, and the spittle was brown and rough. “Stopped, ‘til the storm blew over?”
“Timing, my boy, is everything. Now be a good lad and try to get some of the dust off the ol’ wagon.”
“Yessir,” I said. I must have let my reluctance creep into my voice too much.
“Now don’t you go acting like that! You’re the one who wanted to come along with me, remember? Now git to it!” Bartleby’s tone was harsh, but I could see in his eyes that he was just enjoying giving me a hard time. I rubbed my hands together, trying to stop the sting of the rope burns. Bartleby saw me and grabbed my hand. 
“Ha, that’ll teach you. I told you you’d regret it.” I said nothing.
I shaved a few pieces of soap into the bucket, poured about half of what water was left in my canteen in it and let the soap dissolve a bit. I grabbed the old scrubbing brush, its bristles barely clinging to its bone handle (it might have been an expensive horse grooming brush, ages ago) and got to work. I was worried about scrubbin