A Story About Farmers

Two farmers walked along cornrows. Their needle legs dodged black rows of growth as they observed the white-flaked soil.

“Looks like it’ll be a good year.”

“It does. The ground is ready for plowing.”

The second man jabbed a leg into the flakes, and oil rose to the surface at his foot. He pulled his foot to his mouth and licked.

“Buttery.”

“How’s the family, Bill?”

“Not big enough yet.”

The first laughed. “You’ll get there.”

A shadow covered the sky, and they looked up. Then they looked for escape, but they had wandered too far from their burrows.

The shadow covered everything in sight. They were caught.

The first looked at the second. “I guess this is it, Bill.”

The second watched the hand. “We may make it yet, Simon. We may.”

And the hand came down, and it scratched. Flakes scattered into the sky, leaving the porous surface red and glittering. Sprigs of growth still bent in zig-zags from the violence.

The first farmer looked around, but he saw only the field. The other farmer had disappeared.

And he looked upon the field, and he dreamed of burrows and eggs and harvest as he walked along the cornrows.