Post by Steve on Jan 25, 2008 0:20:03 GMT -5
THE OLD MAN AND THE ORCHARD
Long-branch like fingers circled around the mound, rustling leaves and moving branches that obstructed his eyes’ view. The eyes were tightly squeezed, shutters seamlessly drawn closed, reducing the amount of harsh mid day sun the retina endured. They scanned over and about the peach toned oval while the fingers pinched and pressed and made palm sized circles feeling for a firm place to grasp. At last taking two fingers on either side of the stem and bracing the surface, they tugged. A quick snap, and the bough bounced like a heavy bird just took flight from it, while a cap of green leaves and stalk swung solemnly undisturbed. The old man carried his sack down the old wooden ladder, and breathed hard when reached the bottom. “With every harvest they grow larger as do the complaints in my back” his thin mustache teetered from side to side as he spat this through his clenched teeth.
He placed the brown freckled bag on the ground beside his leg, took from his plaid cotton shirt a handkerchief and proceeded to wipe his brow. The sun was strong, and his head began to feel detached, only an echo from where a thought was shouted. His weight made the ladder arch inward as he crossed one leg about the other and leaned backwards. He thought about calling the boy over and telling him to go fetch something cold for his thirst, but thought better when he saw the boy jumping from tree to tree gathering thrice as many as he himself does in an hour. With pride of a family tradition kept alive he separated his back from the rungs of the ladder and made his way down the road to his house. It was a good hour walking distance, and he paused to look at the pickup. His back tensed, and he thought it wiser to walk the cramp off than settle into the driver’s seat.
Over his shoulder he yelled, “I’ll grab you a spring jug, you could use some water the way you’re jumping about” and started walking.
The truth was that the boy didn’t understand much of what was said to him. Tweak, for that was what the old farmer called him, would just watch. There was something wrong. Not specific to one area. His mind was slow, and his hearing shabby so rather than try verbally explaining his duties to him, the old farmer just went about doing them-instructing the boy with hand gestures and facial expressions. Every morning for the first month he roused the boy from bed, fed him fresh eggs and fish, and walked him; or drove depending on the farmer’s mood, down towards the orchard. Then one morning, the boy, Tweak, was not in bed to be woken. The farmer, being slightly attached, but no real love between them, went about his morning tasks a little slower. He ate his eggs one at a time, cooking them only after the first one was eaten. The fish he went to the river and caught. He watched the scales fly into the morning sun shining like tiny eyes. He filleted it, cooked it and ate happily alone.
It was not that the farmer didn’t like the boy’s company, only that the farmer preferred to do everything by the lonesome. He slept alone in a bed that was alone in the room, and the boy lived downstairs in the guestroom. They would eat together, and then would be off in different directions, neither of them knowing how the other went about occupying them self. Sometimes the old farmer thought ill of the boy, thought he was getting into mischief, and took walks down to the kitchen holding an empty glass, pretending to be fetching a glass of water. Tweak would be sitting there, legs folded, staring at a circle that he had drawn on a piece of paper and taped to the wall.
At the end of the first month together the farmer woke up to Tweak missing. After he ate and dressed he made his way to the orchard via truck. When he pulled towards the first row of trees the boys head stuck out, upside down from the second to lowest branch. His face a crooked jagged smile, not really a child’s grin but more of the smug ignorance from a well trained dog. The farmer remembered all of this as he walked around dips in the dirt, smiling to himself.
The house was now within stone distance from him, and he noticed a beehive above the back door. He stood there for a minute, staring at the black and brown humming specks then went inside. At the counter were two jugs, marked with two different colors so that Tweak would not drink from the old man’s. He gathered the containers and filled them one at a time, then when full placed one beneath his arm and took a swig from the blue jug. Once again at the door he found himself standing around beneath the hive. He was listening to the perfect buzzing of their tiny wings and painting a picture in his mind of a giant bee as large as the house. Once this was finished he tried to hear what that one bee’s buzzing would sound like. He wondered how much louder it could possibly be than the hive in front of him. He shook his head to clear it of these loose thoughts and walked off the back steps.
It would be a long walk ahead of him, and he didn’t rest. The sun was just now over the orchard, rolling along the tops of the trees, and he guessed it was probably bout 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Tweak would be resting by the time he got back. His head resting on his scraped knees, a few scabs would flake off and be stuck to his brow, and his feet would be bare and buried in the dirt. The usual pose when he was not sitting cross-legged.
He limped up to the ladder that he had just left propped against a tree, as though he full heartedly intended to come back and resume, and placed both jugs down. With both of his thin fists he picked the ladder up and heaved it into the back of the truck. The shocks below the frame creaked and the wooden ladder jumped half out of the bed. The back of the truck had been lined with sacks and wool. Years ago he had done this same thing, and the ladder splintered off into a thousand pieces. He learned his lesson after stomping on a log of a strip of wood that impaled his foot (his shoe had been off to fix his crumpled sock). Since then he lined the bed with soft items so that he could still throw the ladder.
From behind four trees ahead of the truck a face emerged from the wide base of the tree. His hair sandy blond and grew out from the center like the greens on a strawberry. His eyes were too far apart, and his nose small and narrowed to a point. He moved an arm as thin as the sand falling through an hourglass and waved a long paddle of a hand. The farmer picked up the stained bag and placed it snugly in the rear of the truck behind the seats then took the jug over to Tweak. He made a glance towards the truck, and like a dog, Tweak rose and jogged over towards his door and waited for the farmer to open it for him.
While Tweak bathed the farmer heated the stove, placed a pot that could be used to bathe a small child onto the burner, and filled it with some sort of stock from an old can. He sat down in the chair at the table and drug the bag over towards him. He opened the sack and plunged his hand inside. It wasn’t haphazardly or careless, but with an experience that comes a long way down the line of heredity. He could remember the first time he ever climbed one of those trees. Hell, he could probably tell you which tree it was! But he fished his hand around; those thin fingers feeling around grabbed hold of an object and slowly pulled it out.
He lifted the mass out of the bag and carefully guided his other hand beneath. The pot on the stove began to bubble over its brim, and he gently, slowly, placed the object on the seat of his chair and left to attend supper.
Behind him, on the seat, was a tiny infant with the smallest scab on the top middle of his
head.
He threw in some corn, beets, cabbage, left over fish scraps, eggs that weren’t finished that morning and other things from inside of the fridge. With a ladle as large as a grown man’s cupped hand he stirred and sloshed about the ingredients in the pot. He lowered it to a high simmer and went back to his seat, lifted the babe once again, and sat down.
To the right of his chair were two bags, much smaller than the one he carried. On the fronts of these bags were spray-painted words. The left on read: Abnormal. The one on the right declared: Normal. He wasn’t quite sure what the words meant. He knew the definitions of the words, knew how to use the words in logical thought, but he had no reason or clue as to why the bags were marked so. The pot finished heating, and the substance was thick with an odor like sun heated fish carcass and burnt vegetable oil. He wiped dry two bowls and equal spoons and placed them on the table. He finished sorting out the babes, one had a hollow eye; another had a shrunken arm; a third one had a perfect smile. This perfect babe he rested on the table. He pinched his fist into a cylinder and slipped it over the mouth of the child. Somehow over the generations of growth, the babes live like cut flowers. They can survive for a short time when separated from the trees, but without proper oxygen resuscitation they wither inward like an autumn leaf. His cheeks puffed out like two partially inflated balloons, and his lips turned purple, then blue. The tiny chest on the table raised then fell. It raised then fell, until the farmer stopped and the chest continued this on its own.
This is part of his family tradition.
The old farmer walked to the stove and began serving supper, maneuvering around the babe delicately breathing on the table and placed the pot back on the burner. Before sitting he picked the infant up, which had ceased respiratory functions, and placed it in the bag marked normal; he moved around the table with the ease of a housewife clearing a vase of dead flowers.
Tweak rushed from the upstairs once his nostrils caught whiff of supper and seated himself at the far end of the table. The farmer dished out the slop, to them both, and they ate.
The bowls were thrown in the kitchen sink, spoons laid out across their brims, and the two sat and stared. The old man thought about the up coming month, the last of the four harvests, and if he would actually make it through. He sunk lower into his chair; the plaid shirt stuck to his caving chest and made a cavern of skin and ribs. Every now and again his heart would beat through the cotton, or his lungs would inflate making him appear mildly healthy.
Long-branch like fingers circled around the mound, rustling leaves and moving branches that obstructed his eyes’ view. The eyes were tightly squeezed, shutters seamlessly drawn closed, reducing the amount of harsh mid day sun the retina endured. They scanned over and about the peach toned oval while the fingers pinched and pressed and made palm sized circles feeling for a firm place to grasp. At last taking two fingers on either side of the stem and bracing the surface, they tugged. A quick snap, and the bough bounced like a heavy bird just took flight from it, while a cap of green leaves and stalk swung solemnly undisturbed. The old man carried his sack down the old wooden ladder, and breathed hard when reached the bottom. “With every harvest they grow larger as do the complaints in my back” his thin mustache teetered from side to side as he spat this through his clenched teeth.
He placed the brown freckled bag on the ground beside his leg, took from his plaid cotton shirt a handkerchief and proceeded to wipe his brow. The sun was strong, and his head began to feel detached, only an echo from where a thought was shouted. His weight made the ladder arch inward as he crossed one leg about the other and leaned backwards. He thought about calling the boy over and telling him to go fetch something cold for his thirst, but thought better when he saw the boy jumping from tree to tree gathering thrice as many as he himself does in an hour. With pride of a family tradition kept alive he separated his back from the rungs of the ladder and made his way down the road to his house. It was a good hour walking distance, and he paused to look at the pickup. His back tensed, and he thought it wiser to walk the cramp off than settle into the driver’s seat.
Over his shoulder he yelled, “I’ll grab you a spring jug, you could use some water the way you’re jumping about” and started walking.
The truth was that the boy didn’t understand much of what was said to him. Tweak, for that was what the old farmer called him, would just watch. There was something wrong. Not specific to one area. His mind was slow, and his hearing shabby so rather than try verbally explaining his duties to him, the old farmer just went about doing them-instructing the boy with hand gestures and facial expressions. Every morning for the first month he roused the boy from bed, fed him fresh eggs and fish, and walked him; or drove depending on the farmer’s mood, down towards the orchard. Then one morning, the boy, Tweak, was not in bed to be woken. The farmer, being slightly attached, but no real love between them, went about his morning tasks a little slower. He ate his eggs one at a time, cooking them only after the first one was eaten. The fish he went to the river and caught. He watched the scales fly into the morning sun shining like tiny eyes. He filleted it, cooked it and ate happily alone.
It was not that the farmer didn’t like the boy’s company, only that the farmer preferred to do everything by the lonesome. He slept alone in a bed that was alone in the room, and the boy lived downstairs in the guestroom. They would eat together, and then would be off in different directions, neither of them knowing how the other went about occupying them self. Sometimes the old farmer thought ill of the boy, thought he was getting into mischief, and took walks down to the kitchen holding an empty glass, pretending to be fetching a glass of water. Tweak would be sitting there, legs folded, staring at a circle that he had drawn on a piece of paper and taped to the wall.
At the end of the first month together the farmer woke up to Tweak missing. After he ate and dressed he made his way to the orchard via truck. When he pulled towards the first row of trees the boys head stuck out, upside down from the second to lowest branch. His face a crooked jagged smile, not really a child’s grin but more of the smug ignorance from a well trained dog. The farmer remembered all of this as he walked around dips in the dirt, smiling to himself.
The house was now within stone distance from him, and he noticed a beehive above the back door. He stood there for a minute, staring at the black and brown humming specks then went inside. At the counter were two jugs, marked with two different colors so that Tweak would not drink from the old man’s. He gathered the containers and filled them one at a time, then when full placed one beneath his arm and took a swig from the blue jug. Once again at the door he found himself standing around beneath the hive. He was listening to the perfect buzzing of their tiny wings and painting a picture in his mind of a giant bee as large as the house. Once this was finished he tried to hear what that one bee’s buzzing would sound like. He wondered how much louder it could possibly be than the hive in front of him. He shook his head to clear it of these loose thoughts and walked off the back steps.
It would be a long walk ahead of him, and he didn’t rest. The sun was just now over the orchard, rolling along the tops of the trees, and he guessed it was probably bout 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Tweak would be resting by the time he got back. His head resting on his scraped knees, a few scabs would flake off and be stuck to his brow, and his feet would be bare and buried in the dirt. The usual pose when he was not sitting cross-legged.
He limped up to the ladder that he had just left propped against a tree, as though he full heartedly intended to come back and resume, and placed both jugs down. With both of his thin fists he picked the ladder up and heaved it into the back of the truck. The shocks below the frame creaked and the wooden ladder jumped half out of the bed. The back of the truck had been lined with sacks and wool. Years ago he had done this same thing, and the ladder splintered off into a thousand pieces. He learned his lesson after stomping on a log of a strip of wood that impaled his foot (his shoe had been off to fix his crumpled sock). Since then he lined the bed with soft items so that he could still throw the ladder.
From behind four trees ahead of the truck a face emerged from the wide base of the tree. His hair sandy blond and grew out from the center like the greens on a strawberry. His eyes were too far apart, and his nose small and narrowed to a point. He moved an arm as thin as the sand falling through an hourglass and waved a long paddle of a hand. The farmer picked up the stained bag and placed it snugly in the rear of the truck behind the seats then took the jug over to Tweak. He made a glance towards the truck, and like a dog, Tweak rose and jogged over towards his door and waited for the farmer to open it for him.
While Tweak bathed the farmer heated the stove, placed a pot that could be used to bathe a small child onto the burner, and filled it with some sort of stock from an old can. He sat down in the chair at the table and drug the bag over towards him. He opened the sack and plunged his hand inside. It wasn’t haphazardly or careless, but with an experience that comes a long way down the line of heredity. He could remember the first time he ever climbed one of those trees. Hell, he could probably tell you which tree it was! But he fished his hand around; those thin fingers feeling around grabbed hold of an object and slowly pulled it out.
He lifted the mass out of the bag and carefully guided his other hand beneath. The pot on the stove began to bubble over its brim, and he gently, slowly, placed the object on the seat of his chair and left to attend supper.
Behind him, on the seat, was a tiny infant with the smallest scab on the top middle of his
head.
He threw in some corn, beets, cabbage, left over fish scraps, eggs that weren’t finished that morning and other things from inside of the fridge. With a ladle as large as a grown man’s cupped hand he stirred and sloshed about the ingredients in the pot. He lowered it to a high simmer and went back to his seat, lifted the babe once again, and sat down.
To the right of his chair were two bags, much smaller than the one he carried. On the fronts of these bags were spray-painted words. The left on read: Abnormal. The one on the right declared: Normal. He wasn’t quite sure what the words meant. He knew the definitions of the words, knew how to use the words in logical thought, but he had no reason or clue as to why the bags were marked so. The pot finished heating, and the substance was thick with an odor like sun heated fish carcass and burnt vegetable oil. He wiped dry two bowls and equal spoons and placed them on the table. He finished sorting out the babes, one had a hollow eye; another had a shrunken arm; a third one had a perfect smile. This perfect babe he rested on the table. He pinched his fist into a cylinder and slipped it over the mouth of the child. Somehow over the generations of growth, the babes live like cut flowers. They can survive for a short time when separated from the trees, but without proper oxygen resuscitation they wither inward like an autumn leaf. His cheeks puffed out like two partially inflated balloons, and his lips turned purple, then blue. The tiny chest on the table raised then fell. It raised then fell, until the farmer stopped and the chest continued this on its own.
This is part of his family tradition.
The old farmer walked to the stove and began serving supper, maneuvering around the babe delicately breathing on the table and placed the pot back on the burner. Before sitting he picked the infant up, which had ceased respiratory functions, and placed it in the bag marked normal; he moved around the table with the ease of a housewife clearing a vase of dead flowers.
Tweak rushed from the upstairs once his nostrils caught whiff of supper and seated himself at the far end of the table. The farmer dished out the slop, to them both, and they ate.
The bowls were thrown in the kitchen sink, spoons laid out across their brims, and the two sat and stared. The old man thought about the up coming month, the last of the four harvests, and if he would actually make it through. He sunk lower into his chair; the plaid shirt stuck to his caving chest and made a cavern of skin and ribs. Every now and again his heart would beat through the cotton, or his lungs would inflate making him appear mildly healthy.