| SAME WHERE ELSE | PART ONE | WRECK CREATION | | Episode Nine |
Photo by Pisces Iscariot
“I am the countryside” says the field under its breath of fresh air.
Atom leans the Company bicycle against a tree and sits down on the stump beside it to catch his own breath which has escaped while he was busy pedalling.
After his gasping subsides and the dizziness in his head wanders off to explore, Atom notices a playing field of white painted goalposts cut off by the curve of the field in the foreground and the voices of the teenage football teams come to him over the distance, their cries like the calls of arguing sheep.
He muses awhile on the wisdom of sheep but is soon distracted by an engine hum from behind him.
Apprehensive, he stands and turns toward the sound, imagining some gargantuan harvester looming on the horizon, eating everything in its path; turning the peace into prosperity.
He notices the birds crowding just above the crest of the field’s rise, on whose far side a tractor tracks the field between ink-blot winter trees and watercolour sky.
Atom realises that the birds are picking life from the warmth of the freshly turned earth.
“They’re ploughing,” he says to the field, “...or sewing...or sowing?”
The trees’ bare branches remind him of the little reindeer girl back down the road he turns to find that she and her grandmother are still visible as two ‘i’s in the yellow distance.
Looking back once again toward the receding sound of the tractor he sees that birds are now flocking to the tractor’s wake in an arrowhead wave, growing in number to swirl.
“The word is out” breathes the fecund earth to the field’s amber question.
Atom leans the Company bicycle against a tree and sits down on the stump beside it to catch his own breath which has escaped while he was busy pedalling.
After his gasping subsides and the dizziness in his head wanders off to explore, Atom notices a playing field of white painted goalposts cut off by the curve of the field in the foreground and the voices of the teenage football teams come to him over the distance, their cries like the calls of arguing sheep.
He muses awhile on the wisdom of sheep but is soon distracted by an engine hum from behind him.
Apprehensive, he stands and turns toward the sound, imagining some gargantuan harvester looming on the horizon, eating everything in its path; turning the peace into prosperity.
He notices the birds crowding just above the crest of the field’s rise, on whose far side a tractor tracks the field between ink-blot winter trees and watercolour sky.
Atom realises that the birds are picking life from the warmth of the freshly turned earth.
“They’re ploughing,” he says to the field, “...or sewing...or sowing?”
The trees’ bare branches remind him of the little reindeer girl back down the road he turns to find that she and her grandmother are still visible as two ‘i’s in the yellow distance.
Looking back once again toward the receding sound of the tractor he sees that birds are now flocking to the tractor’s wake in an arrowhead wave, growing in number to swirl.
“The word is out” breathes the fecund earth to the field’s amber question.
2 comments:
Still a favourite.
2nd sentence 'busy pedalling'.
Lxx
Ahh! re Aunt Molly.
Thanks Letitia (unpaid editor)
Post a Comment