//Blast this old nag!// The man cursed, as he yanked hard at the reigns while trying to keep the ancient handplow dug into the earth. //Why did I ever decide on the farmer's way of life? What's it ever got me, a dead John Deere in the field, and now having to lead this old mare in the heat fo the day. How did they ever survive it in the days before machinary?//
He continued slapping at the horse with the reigns, growing more agitated by the minute. As he hit rocks and unbreaking clods, he would begin counting again. "One...two...thre-" *Clang* "There's another rock... one...two..." His litany was making his throat dry, and the sweat came down in rivulets over his eyes. When he would wipe it away, though, grit and dust would great his vision next, making him blink tears, and choke on the stirred dust.
Old MacMillian, next door, had brought him some lemon-aid a while ago, and that really did help, the antique farmer and his wife sure did treat him good, but they were certainly nosey, too. He had waited to get back to the plow until the old man had tottered back toward his farm, but was sure that MacMillian hadn't gone far... just to the other side of the hill, by the lone Hickory to watch.
He trudged on, his footing slipping in the freshly broken dirt. Knowing that he would never be done before nightfall made him all the more angery. He hated this life, now that he knew the worst of it; hated it, and wouldn't wish it on anyone. The horse moved to one side again, and this time, when he snapped the reigns, she kicked the plow, hard! That was it! He could take no more, the rage built up, and with a burst of air, he began to yell, but no sound came from his throat. Instead flame ripped from his hands, spreading outward to engulf the wood of the plow... to melt the metal of it's blade and fastenings. Fire ripped outward from his arms, the cloth evaporating to powder at his shoulders. They licked at the fur and mane of the horse, sending waves of orange light and heat rushing across the flesh before the animal could make a sound. Then it was over, he stood in the half plowed feild, staring at the charred carcass and the ash that blew around him...
His mouth worked soundlessly as he slowly turned about.
He stood nakedly at ground zero of a 60' circle of scorched earth, the ashen, skeletal corpses of horse and plow alike before him. Beyond that, the destruction ended cleanly and abruptly, as if the zone of burning had been laid out with the compass of some giant mathematician's compass.
The man knelt down then, flinching at the staccato pop of his middle-aged knees in the oppressive silence. Hesitantly, like a man reaching into a rattlesnake den, he picked up a handful of dirt. He felt the dry slickness of ash between his fingertips -- the remnants of last season's wheat had been reduced to charcoal in less than an instant.
A sudden breeze hissed across the field, blowing apart the ashen remains of the horse and plow in a silent gray explosion even as it swept the charred dirt from his fingertips and tore a startled scream from his throat.
*****
The farmer stood leaning on the door frame, surveying the kitchen as if it were an alien landscape. He didn't remember having walked back to the house.
He shuffled like a drunk across the blue-and-white tile, pulling back a chair from the kitchen table with a shaking hand and sitting. He glanced at the morning paper laying there on the tabletop, dutifully awaiting his perusal; absently, he noted that gas prices were expected to continue to rise.
"*GERALD*!"
His wife had taken his place in the doorway, standing there covering her mouth in horror. Strange... she wasn't due back from town for hours yet.
A quick glance at the Bavarian cuckoo clock on the wall informed him that it *was* hours later. Had he really been sitting there that long?
"Gerald!" she repeated, taking slow, fearful steps into the room, "What HAPPENED?"
He looked up at her, squinting as if through a morning fog.
"We had... a fire."
"A - a fire?" Her voice sounded as if the tears were just there, building until they burst forth, like a dam that held too much weight. "A fire?" she repeated, knowing somehow that there was more, but fearful to ask anything else of her husband.
"Yes, Dora, a fire." He said, letting the words sink in for her. He did not want to tell her anything more; he was still trying to sort it out himself. //It had come up from the ground hadn't it? Maybe when the plow hit one of the rocks, it also caught a gas pocket and ignited the field... that was certainly more believable than the *other* story, wasn't it? He did not even want to consider the other story. He sat in silence for a while longer, his hands shaking, as they moved methodically to pick up the paper. "Gas prices are gong to sky-rocket again." He exaggerated.
"*Gas Prices*!" His wife yelled, almost hysterrically. "We've lost our crops, and with it the money to keep our home, and you're telling me about *GAS PRICES*!?! What is *wrong* with you, Gerald?"
He sat in silence, not sure if he really wanted to tell her.
****
And, in the end, he *didn't* tell her.
MacMillian did.
Dora sat on the porch in her rocking chair. The stars were almost out, flickering in the last green tatters of the twilight, and Gerald had gone hours ago. Whether he had gone into town in the battered pickup, or simply gone to bed, she didn't know. And she really didn't care.
The day that they had moved into this house, she had put her rocker - the one her mother had given her for a bridal gift - on the porch, and every night for the last 40 years she had sat on the porch at sunset, rocking, rocking. This was *her* time. The chores were finally done: the meals had been cooked, the dishes washed, the eggs from immumerable chickens collected and sold. It was The Time In Which Nothing Needed Doing: most nights, she simply sat and rocked and savored that fact.
But not tonight. Tonight...
She sighed, and forced herself to look out at the grass. "It's all *gone*," she whispered. And it was. There were no mourning doves picking up the last of the chaff that the daytime sparrows had left, tonight. The sunset was perfect, and eerie: for the first time in 40 years, she could *see* the glowing half-halo left in the sky just after the sun dipped below the horizon, because it was not obscured by stalks of waving wheat. Tomorrow, she thought, tomorrow we will have to go into town, and we will sell the icebox, and maybe some chickens, and the rocker...
She looked down at the worn chair rails where the chickens still perched despite her furious shooings, and the armrests worn smooth from time and weather and hands, and nearly cried. She realized suddenely that she had not cried in a long time, not since - when? She shook her head, and could not remember. It does not matter, anyway, she told herself...it matters less than where Gerald went off to.
But still, she *wanted* to cry.
"How did it *happen*?" she wondered, out loud, and was startled when she got an answer.
There was a cough, and she looked up. MacMillian was standing there, shilouhetted black. He was hard to see against the blue-black color of the sky, and was featureless like the paper doll-chains she used to make as a little girl.
"Dora," he said in greeting, as if nothing had happened.
She swallowed before replying. "Frank."
He stood, gazing out at the circle of earth for a moment. Somewhere, Dora remembered, she had learned that the circle was the most perfect of shapes. It did not seem that way now.
"This - " he said, and stopped. "Err," he began again, and it took a few more coughs for him to see his way clear to, "The missus and I, if we can help..."
Dora thought he sounded like the pickup starting on cold winter mornings. She did not say anything, and MacMillian spoke again.
"You didn't see it, did you? I mean, you didn't see what - happened..."
She shook her head 'no' in three tiny little arcs. She wondered at MacMillian - he had always been one that spoke his mind, and his sudden hesitation made her frightened. "I didn't," she said quickly, to make him go on.
"He," he said, and sighed, then burst out with, "he sorta - he - well, I was behind the tree, and...you heard the expression 'he burst into flames' before? And you know those stories, where the people are sitting at home on the chair, reading or something, and they just *flame* and then - poof, they're gone? Well, I don't know how, but he did that, with his hands. They're black with *ashes* now, his hands are, not just plain dirt...and those stories - I used to laugh at 'em. I don't anymore."
Poof, she thought as she looked out at the scarred fields. My life has just gone up in smoke.
And she was very afraid.
And while his wife sat in her rocker, shaking with a new-found fear, Gerald got into his truck. He was still shaking and frightened himself, but there was a numbness setting in. //I must be going crazy.// He kept finding his mind repeating. With a turn of the key in teh ignition, he set his foot to the clutch, put the antique in gear, and sped out of the drive, and down the dirt road.
Once in town, he parked near the town center and rushed to the bank. He had to take care of that loan, quick, or he would lose his farm, and more than likely, his wife, too. As he stepped onto the sidewalk, a touch fo jealous anger made flames lick over his finger tips when he reached for the door of the bank. With a jerk, as if he had been shocked, he cradled his hand against his chest, and stared at the handle, fear touching his features like a shadow touching mist. With a tentative try, he gripped the door handle and entered the establishment, hoping that Mr. Judkins would be in today.
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