Crops

He had been the host of a party, a holiday gathering of friends and business partners. Too much food was eaten and too much drinking was done. Once everybody had left he had wandered up the stairs of his home, he remembers it feeling like a year long journey. He had plopped onto his comforter and passed out fully dressed in suit and tie. The wind woke him up, white dots sparked in his half lidded vision. A fire that had burned in his stomach the night before had traveled to his head while he slept. When he attempted to get to his feet, the dots increased and the fire raged, forcing him back onto the bed. The desire to lay in bed, sweating in uncomfortable clothes and plagued with a desert cracked mouth was strong, but the pain in his head was stronger. Through the pain, he fumbled for clothes in the dark until he was in a short-sleeve shirt and a pair of pajama pants. The hallway passed in groggy shadows and the linoleum of the kitchen was cold on his feet. He ran his hands under the kitchen sink's water and splashed it onto his face. With a tilt of his body, he took a drink. The cracks of his tongue filled to full the more he swallowed. Through tired vision and cold fingers, a ball of light treaded carefully down into the snow beyond his barn, beyond his yard, and towards the edge of his fields. It was pure as the snow, he remembered thinking. It was untouched by the world. Had he chalked the sight off to be the alcohol, he never would have gone outside. He never would have put on his boots, winter coat, and a hat and bared the biting wind. The snow was already up to his ankles, but he ran. He pushed, collapsed, got back up, and ran harder. The wind took his hat, but he took the wind’s friends. The snowflakes that melted on his skin. In many ways, both of them were monsters. Wind and man. Both not feeling mercy. He was desperate to know. The grogginess was gone and all of his body felt free when he passed his barn, when he crossed the threshold of his fields without a crunch of the snow because it was fresh and weak. He couldn’t hear his own breath over the screaming of the night. As he got closer and closer, the white turned to gold and all of his pain turned to peace; he sank to his knees to get a closer look and remember how it felt to breathe.

Now he stands before the well and looks up to the skyStars are etched from the sky and he watches as the stragglers drift down onto the rustic grass. The stars were a pretty color that shimmered in the brightest parts of the sky’s light. It had been a month since they fell, and like always, they were right on time. One after the other, the soil began to part for them. Slowly, with their warmth, went their color. The stars burrow into the ground and give birth to flowers in which he will turn into tea. The taste changes with each growth; the gold roses left a sweet taste in his mouth, tulips melted on their way to his mouth until it felt like he’d just chugged a glass of water, the daffodils rang bitter between his teeth, and whenever he would place a piece of golden fruit on his tongue a high would singe his nerves for days. He didn’t know what they were going to be this time around, but they fell at different speeds. It had always been a tie before. His gut told him to expect something he hadn’t before. By tomorrow morning, he’d know. For now, he watched the lion mane shade of gold sink and sink until the ground returned to its regular dull brown. Without some of the stars in the sky, the ground appeared to be a dark pit ready to devour him.

With the promise of crops in the morning, he gave way to a small smile as he started his favorite part of the night. Once dinner had been eaten, his shower taken, after he watched the stars fall, it would be his turn in the process. He had to water the sky, and it had to be with the right amount of blood, and it had to be on the right breath, and it had to be with his eyes closed. No exceptions.

The Well of Wellbeing stood in the front yard, near the trail that starts from his steps and leads down to his driveway, between his house and his field. It was worn brick, a damn near shit pile he thought so often, but it had existed before him. Before the stars, even. It was the center of all things, and he was in charge of it. He was given something to follow. It had always been this way, since the moment he woke up here. His life before that is irrelevant. All that matters is the sacrifice, the Well, the stars, the cycle. He had to stay focused, the minute was arriving. The hook at the end of the well’s rope jangled against the bucket’s handle as he lowered it to the bottom. The lever creaked as it turned with his movements. There was a small splash, and the bucket began to fill. He pictured the wood on its side, darkening with each second it rests in the water. Like the blood on his living room carpet yesterday evening.

The beginning of the month, without fail, the stars would send a fool from the town a few miles down the road up to his house. He didn’t ask how it worked, but he knew that it did. Without fail, a stranger would appear at the door. The first one proved to be the most difficult. When was the right time? How does one do it? What happens after? Is a piece of him different when he’s done draining them and chopping them up? What did it mean to kill a human and not have the consequences attached to it? Because life was different here, it was his job now. To stay here, he had to do it, and in doing it, he learned the answer to his question. He has learned that a person does change, their view on lives wrinkle a bit. It becomes easier to swing a hammer with time and practice, precision is key. Last night, the guy who appeared at Joseph’s door looked homeless. He wore baggy and torn clothes, his face was layered with dirt and filth. The guy’s eyes were saucers, wide and terrifying. That was new. They had never expressed fear from the start before. Only if the blow with the hammer wasn’t precise enough. Something about this growth was different, but why? Was it a test?

The man went wild; he shoved Joseph back into his house and made a break for the hallway that led to the kitchen. Joseph’s neck snapped back as his head collided with the stairs and his eyes became scattered with green and blue dots. Disoriented and fuzzy, he forced himself to his feet and grabbed for the hammer on the shelf next to his bowl of keys. The wood of the handle had been cold. Joseph closed the door with a quiet nod to the Well of Wellbeing a ways down the path.

“Thank you, I will not fail you.” Scared footsteps approached him, and with as much ease as his body would allow him, he slid the hammer between the back of his pants and his white shirt.

“What do you want with me! Who are you talking to! Who are you! How am I here!” The man’s face was ready to pop, a bulging vein in his forehead threatened to burst on the clean Oak flooring. A knife stabbed at the air in front of him as he shook to the point he could have been convulsing from a seizure. “Tell me where I am! Answer me right now!” The stranger with the cherry face took another step forward, spit now hanging from the side of his lip.

“Now son-”

“I’m not your son! I don’t know who you are! I was in the bar! I was about to go home and get laid, and when I blink, I’m here! What the fuck did you do to me!”

“I understand you must be a lil frightened. What with it bein dark and all. Just take a few deep breaths, and start from the beginning.” Joseph spoke in the nicest voice he could muster. “Why don’t we step out there onto the porch? It’s a quiet night, and I think the fresh air would do you some good.”

“I want to go home. I have to work in the morning. I was going to get laid. She was hot too, man. I-,”

“Hey, you’re alright; you are breathing, you are in one piece, you are not that far from town. I can take you back in my truck.” Joseph’s hands had risen in an act of innocence. It would be wrong to frighten the stranger anymore.

“Really?” An instant flash of relief crossed the man’s eyes. It was a quick reflection in the entryway light above the two of them. Joseph noted how deep the man’s eyes were; a never ending set of two seas melted into his pupils, and mixed were little flecks of silver that spread into the red rimmed whites of the man’s eyes.

“I’ve never gotten a good look at the eyes before. What are they saying to you? I haven’t heard them since I woke up here. I don’t even really know where here is, but you’ve disappeared for a while, those moments in your head, that time is gone too, and your mind can’t handle it. They are starting to peek through. I can see them, their flecks are like little puncture wounds in the sky. What are they saying to you?” It was all in one breath, and by the end Joseph’s mouth was dry.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about! Can you get me back or not?”

“They are peeking through, I can see them, and I need to finish it off, down to the minute, I need to get you to safety.” Joseph’s throat scratched against itself, like the patch of metal that rubbed against his thumb as he moved his hand behind his back.

“Old man, can you take me back or not?” The relief in the stranger’s eyes turned to anger. “I need you to take me back.”

“I need to know what they are saying to you!” A blind rage fueled Joseph’s movements as pulled the hammer from his pants and swung at the stranger’s hand. The hammer connected with a hard crunch and screamed. The knife clattered to the ground as Joseph swung the hammer back in the arc that it came, catching the man in the face with the long end of the hammer head and tearing out his cheek. Joseph saw the flecks of silver in the stranger’s skin. “They’re really talking to you. They are. I know it. You know everything. Tell me, tell me, tell me!”

Both men screamed. Joseph screamed of rage and betrayal at the stars for making today different than normal, for talking to a sacrifice they had chosen. The stranger screamed of the pain in his hand and his face, from the unknown house he was bleeding out in, from the voices in his head that sounded like open air. Their voices echoed over every inch of his mind. They wanted Joseph dead.

We need him to see us, deliver him to us. Free him from the burden, Anthony. Free him. Show us.

Joseph swung again before all of the pieces of Anthony’s cheek could touch the ground. Pictures that he couldn’t see pressed and broke against his shirt as Joseph pushed him into a wall. The man’s eyes were a first for Anthony. Blood red and dripping, his iris and pupils gone. The man’s lips were pulled back as he screamed, his spit touched Anthony’s tongue.

Bring us Joseph! Bring him to us now! You must replace him! It is your Destiny! He is starting to join us already, no mad man can make a mad man bleed; you must deliver!

“Joseph! They told me Joseph!”

The two men could hear the crickets again, every ragged breath, the drop of blood on the wood floor, and even the slight hint of the bar Anthony had been talking about moments before. The two men became eerie paintings before one another, they were on display in every sense.

“That’s my,” a breath. “That’s my name.”

Fuck, Anthony didn’t like where this was going to go.

“They wouldn’t tell a sacrifice my name. They wouldn’t.” When Joseph’s thoughts put the pieces together, his eyes burned with the final swing of his hammer. Anthony hadn’t had time to move. Joseph would never know that he had a name, he would just be a sacrifice to him, and when Anthony’s hand bobbed in the water of the bucket all Joseph could do was smile, because he did know that the stars wanted to replace him. He did know one thing.

He hefted the bucket onto the ledge and into the air, at the exact minute he was supposed to. The green swampy looking sky accepted the bucket of watered down blood. Like the sky had hands of its own, blood was pulled and stretched until it all disappeared and stars returned in their place. Like ashes, the hand was blown away and taken to unimaginable places, and in its place was the new brightest star in the sky. It was a thank you. The cracks in between each star made his toes tingle and he thought of the stranger’s blood that seeped into his dirty socks the night before; it was freshly fallen blood on old snow. A smile on a dead man’s face. A promise that left the lips of a deceiver, maybe he’d become corrupt. No, he wasn’t destined for corruption. You can not corrupt what is already sleeping with the dead. Joseph placed the bucket back onto the hook and made his way up towards his house. The wind was soft tonight. He closed his eyes and breathed it in. A smile appeared in his mind, a familiar scent tickled his nose hairs; he opened his eyes and both sensations were gone. He turned and surveyed the land. With each rapid his eyes looked over his land. House. Field. Well. Barn.

The barn lingered against the night sky. It was where the rest of the stranger lay on piles of hay, only his hand was missing so far, but the rest would come. The stars like a sacrifice more when its flesh was older and easier to absorb, but there was something about the young skin that always won in their decision. As the month goes past, the stranger will start to rot. He’ll smell bad and start to melt into the hay a little bit, but Joseph will be able to carry pieces of him out into the open air. However, those thoughts were for next time. There wasn’t a trace of that smell in the wind, but the smile remained in his mind. He memorized every detail and did not look up at the sky for a second time during his goodnight like he usually does. Instead, he counted the pebbles that made up the path to his door.

There was a certain kind of coldness in Joseph’s blood stained hallway. It wouldn’t come out of the wood. Would there be more like that stranger? Crazy ones? How badly do they want him gone? The questions felt like burning pages in his mind. Why now? What has changed? He didn’t remember anything before the night he found the star’s flowers, and now the stars want him dead? He felt the burning in his hands as he reached for some food from his fridge. A slow boil made its way over Joseph’s skin. He wanted the pages to be in the wind, to blow away and break apart until not even the memory existed. The clatter of his glass plate on the counter sent a sigh through his reddening arms, neck, and face. He took a few deep breaths and walked over the stained floor in the hallway, to the first step up to his bedroom.

You are granted the need to know to leave, your time has come, the souls of another do not concern you; you are now, not then or later.

The caramel colored wood before him melted together and snapped back into reality in less than a second. A light knock from his front door makes him turn too fast. The food falls and glass shatters, and then for a brief moment it is all silent; his memories, his touch, his smell, his taste, and his sight, for that split second, he was air. Three more quick knocks. His feet don’t move, his will remains in the same place. He had to have imagined it. With a step up the stairs, he watched the door. When he made it to the top, the knocks came again. One, two, three in quicker succession this time. A voice followed, muffled, but a voice still the same. It was a young one, saying hello, asking if anybody was home. It was a female’s voice. Like any sane man who was only supposed to receive a person at his door once a month, he walked down the stairs with hesitation. From the stand by the door, the hammer slid between his fingers.

One hand wanted to attack the moment he opened the door, and the other didn’t want to open it all. Maybe he was already in bed asleep and this is just a trick of the mind, wouldn’t that be nice? A reminder of fear, a reminder that he’s human, just a little better off than the rest. He hadn’t questioned why the stars chose him, and maybe that was something he should have done, he could’ve asked what to do in a situation like this; the wind was cool on his face and bare toes, it tickled his body through his silk pajamas. His life caught on the tip of his tongue as he tried to speak. Everything in his body was telling him that he knew her, from her hair, to her cheeks, to her shoulders, all the way down. He knew her. He had to.

“Hello, can I help you?” His voice was high pitched, like a tea kettle; it sounded pathetic.

“Hello sir, I was wondering if I could use your phone? My car broke down a ways down the road, and I saw the light from your windows. It won’t take very long.” He wouldn’t use milk and honey to describe the way that she spoke. It was like a creek deep into a forest. Undisturbed and captivating, she flowed into herself and through him like crystal clear water.

“Um, yeah, of course. Right this way.” He hadn’t used his landline for quite some time. He didn’t even know if it worked.

“Thank you so much, I just need to call the towing company, and then I’ll be out of your hair!”

He walked through to where his landline resided against a wall in the kitchen. “I will be in the living room, I will show you out when you are finished.” A dull throb began in his temple as he spoke. She was a stranger, and here he was allowing her into his home. Did the stars require more? Is that why she is here? He could feel the blood pumping beneath his skin, the veins that held it began to itch. The couch welcomed him as he collapsed onto the cushions. Her voice was muffled in the kitchen.

I suppose it works after all, he thought to himself as he shut his eyes and rubbed the sides of his head.

“It’s time to quit playing pretend, Joseph. It is time to move on.”

In the light of his house, her black hair was oil that was probably used to make the night sky. Her eyes were a chestnut brown, and he had spent many days looking into them without saying a word. Her skin was pale and her head in the shape of a moonstone, round and a beautiful mind amongst pebbles. She wore the dress he bought her the day she died. It was an off the shoulder forest green that traveled down past her knees and traveled around her ankles like a forest somebody could get lost in. On her finger was their wedding ring. On her shoulders was only half her head, cut diagonally because of the accident. He did know her. He had loved her.

“It is time to go now, Joseph. It is time to wake up. It is time to die.” On her final word, she smiled, and it was the same smile he saw in his mind a few hours before. Needles cut into his tongue when he tried to scream. Her face began to bleed from the left temple down to the right side of her jaw. In the quiet of the living room, her left eye blinked at different times because of the cut and teeth shards fell from between her lips as she spoke to him again. “It is time to die now, Joseph.”

“No, no, no, what are you talking about, stay away from me!” The floor collected more blood. Joseph scratched at the armrest. She took a step. Joseph got to his feet. “What do you want from me!”

“Remember, Joseph. Remember. Remember what you did.” Her skin bruised and broke before him, and from her wounds, it started to snow. It sparkled in unseen daylight and mixed with the blood that poured from the bottom half of her face.

A guttural cry was unleashed into the quiet night as his fingers began to turn purple in the snow, in the storm. It hadn’t been a holiday gathering. It was a service. Her service. His wife; his Loreli. A picture of her had been in the living room, a big picture that had been taken less than a year before. The frame was covered with flowers, Tulips and white Roses. Both flowers were entangled with vines and leaves. He had been drinking. The night of the service and the day of her accident. Each second caused more pain; his nails dug into the sides of his head as the wind took away his voice to unimaginable lands.

It was a business party. He was getting a promotion. He thought he was fine to drive home. The truck came out of nowhere. Half of her head had been in his hands. He screamed and went into shock. Each second was something new, his brain was working in short cut off sentences. That dress. That smile. Her heart. Pure as gold. As golden as the crops of his stars. The stars that chose him; but now here he lay in the snow on the same night that felt like hundreds of years ago. He’d wanted it to be hundreds of years ago. He’d needed to feel the pain, and he was: he was feeling every ounce of it. The stars blamed him. Karma slit his life and poured him over the snow of his home. He drank, and he drank, and nothing made sense, but he didn’t want to see the stars anymore, she loved them. He saw the arc of her blood against the night sky as her breathing settled into the bottom of her lungs for eternity. An arc of blood that he had made, an act he had punished himself for day and night, in his mind centuries. He lay in the snow, his car inches away, her body mangled inside. Joseph’s frozen eyes had counted the stars when red and blue lights filtered over them. A nametag covered them up for mere seconds, and he read the name Anthony. The golden lettering. The world where he was safe and nothing went wrong existed in his hopes of ignoring what had happened. The wind laughs at him, and a sob escapes his blue and purple lips. As the night grew colder and the snow continued to fall, it became harder and harder to see the stars. He wondered, before the flakes covered him fully, if she was looking down on him now; he wondered if she blamed him for what he had done; she wondered from an immeasurable distance away, if she blamed him for what he had done.