Season’s Harvest

He sat satisfied and in silence next to the dying fire he had built after his day’s work. The pit and his chair sat atop the flat stone platform he laid during the course of summer. 

“The cold at night bites harder don’it,” he chuckled to himself. He reached his dirt-covered fingers into his front chest pocket to grab a pinch of tobacco and packed it into the bowl of his worn corn cob pipe now drooping from the corner of his mouth and grey beard. He struck a match and lit the leaf that flashed orange into his eyes, looking out into the cold dead fields surrounding his farm on all sides. 

Not a soul for thousands of acres. The fields were hard now, mostly frosted over mud. The harvested stalks were grey, used and snapped over, like they were bowing to him. The tractor tracks from harvest were fossilized. He could see his breath and smoke mixing in the air. 

He chuckled again, “She hated when I smoked.” 

He leaned to the side, spat, and returned the pipe to his teeth. Began the slow process of coming to a stand with hands on knees. 

He grunted, looking at his newly finished project with pride. There, where the northern and eastern fields cut a sharp corner against his yard… 

The well. 

Her well. 

She had told him to dig it for years now. She wanted “one like out of a fairy tale,” she’d always say. “Stone and rope and bucket and all the fixin’s.” 

He’d learned to hate it when she’d talk. 

“I dig. I plant. I feed. I water. I grow. I grow. I take. I take.” He hummed the chant to himself as he walked over slowly towards her well. 

As he approached, he could still hear the echoes from the end, the crescendo of his life with her. He felt for the first time what he’d thought an artist might feel when they give a scribble to their name for all time on a masterpiece of painting. 

“Suppose I ought to say a few words.” 

He stood there looking down into the well. There was no water yet. All he could see was blackness. All he could tell was the rope was still as “taut as a banjo string,” he thought. 

Just like he’d planned. 

He took another pull from his pipe, blew a plume of smoke, turned it over and dumped ash into the blackness. 

Like tossing dirt on a casket. 

He stared down and finally spoke. 

“Well, I done how you asked. All this time beggin’ for this damned thing to get dug and I finally done it, didn’t I? I hope you’re happy.”

His voice cracked and his eyes glossed over. 

“I guess what I can say is you never were a reasonable woman. Ever since I known ya. This was a long time comin’ and we both knew it, didn’t we? Maybe life can get too normal. Don’t forget this was your idea. I won’t need to be explainin’ myself out here. Maybe never to no one. We never had the need for company anyways. So, it’s alright. And even if it ain’t … well, it’ll just be.”

He looked up to the night sky where stars began to develop. “The most stubborn woman I ever met. That’s a point no one can take. It hardly felt worth it to go on how it was.”

He stooped over to pick up the wooden well cover he had fashioned and placed it over the opening, grabbing the shovel that was propped up against the stone. He looked back up to the stars and thought about her. 

“I don’t need no explanations. In the end it’s all just nothi–“

He came to at the sound of her faint humming from the house. He realized he’d done it again, playing it over and over in his head. 

He heard the tune she once sang during garden season when she’d “pull weeds to make way for seeds.” 

He heard the screen door open behind him.

He remained silent next to the dying fire; just glowing ash now–he couldn’t remember how long he’d been sitting there. She stepped slowly onto the porch, her walker leading the way. She had blankets drooped over her shoulders. Her hair was all but gone now, and what was left of it was covered by a knitted, pale pink cap. The oxygen hose hung loosely around her ears and under nose, her face pained and grey from the slow drip of poison. 

“Time to put supper on, isn’t it?” she wheezed. 

He hated that sound. 

He began the slow process of coming to a stand with his hands on knees. He looked out at the smooth ground where the northern and eastern fields cut a sharp corner against his yard. He turned and looked at her. The image of who she once was could not be found. 

“Think it’s time I can finally dig you that well,” he said. She stared at him. 

A look of relief crossed her face. A look he’d not seen for a long time. 

“Thank you.”