On Reaping On Threshing

The lanky man in the black suit closed the door gently and Tom could see now the thing left. Sitting before him was a small white pressed clean metal box. It’s code had been input on its shining metallic dials and now sat open. A thin sliver of darkness could be seen between it’s top and its bottom halves, only separated by a gleaming handle and the shadow of what appeared to be an open pocket sized black notebook. Tom thought to himself silently of the dialed code.

“Seven-two-seven”

His soft inner voice echoed long in his inner self and vacantly he again retreated to thought, staring through the window to his right.

It was astonishing he thought how in one moment a man can be all but contented in his life, only to then have a frail hunched stranger walk into an office and change everything.

“Stranger”

Tom thought.

“He is no real stranger.”

Tom assuredly did not know the man. Yet, he knew him the way that a farmer knows other farmers. Yes, indeed Tom knew this man, his type. The man was like a thousand other men that Tom had known in his life. He had sung himself into the moment and then left singing again. All the while, leaving behind him, Tom. Lost in a moment and staring out a window. Hoping for answers.

“That man”...

Tom in silence said

“That man is a man I knew before he was here.”

The lanky man had come to Tom with a half smile. The smile of someone fulfilling a thing that had been tasked to them. A thing ever-present and ever-weighing on him, and in his coming the duty was fulfilled. Now he was relieved and Tom was not.

He flashed back to that day. The day he left that place for good. That place he had hated so much that he wanted to watch it burn. Yet, even in childhood Tom had known that it was not all bad. He could remember his mother, soft dresses and working hands. Her long hair. There she would sing the old songs of her grandmother's mother.

It seemed to Tom now that he could not remember the words to those songs. Only their hum and cadence. He could remember the day that his mother was there, he saw her staring much like him now. She had stood there gazing out the pine framed window of a silent kitchen humming one of those ancient tunes. He could not remember when it had stopped, but it had. It was then that it was over.

He turned his head sharply again to the mahogany desk before him. It was a beautiful thing and even now, as the humming faded in his head and he held back the weeping which had again tried to take him over, he recalled it’s specifics. Tom had ordered the desk from a catalogue. He recited openly at this point.

“One-Thousand-Two-Hundred-Fity-Two-and-Fifty-Two-Cents”

He continued...

“Mahogany of the finest quality.”

“Sourced from old growth.”

“Carved by hand with cherub and scroll.”

It was from memory that Thomas was able to recall these things and in their recalling he found some comfort. In fact Tom was known for his great level of recall and his ability to never forget a figure or detail. This had helped Tom throughout his life. It was the thing that had made him the man that he was, at least the concept he held of himself. He was known at the local Rotary as a man with a mind like an elephant.

This was something that Tom took great pride in. It was not uncommon for the president of the club to show Tom off as it were. Inevitably there would be a new member and Tom would be introduced to them. The president Mr. Nester, a man with a squat red face and a bulky frame would proclaim,

“And this here is our resident archivist and the best damn lawyer in Virginia Mr. Tom Angleen.”

An introduction would ensue only for Tom to later suspect that it was the pats on the back which sealed the truth. Tom knew that they all saw him for what he was. A very intelligent sideshow. A man that could recall the catalogue specifics of a 10 year ago bought desk, but was unable to remember the birthday of his wife, or their five children, or even the great bear hunt songs of his lost mother.

He could not even remember it seemed the demands to stay from the harsh sun as a child. He could not remember why he was told to stop letting his dark hair grow wild. He could not remember the day he was told to stop being him. He did however, think he could remember her perfume on breezes. But often would brush this aside. He could not remember when he went from his mothers child to simply Tom. To a man that behind closed doors was called in the south a “peculiar”.

Yet, it was into this that Tom had learned something important. When the songs had faded only to a mist in his mind, it became easier to be. It was easier as he walked into that world to forget of the last one. It became easier and easier and easier to stop weeping over wind, to stop pushing, to stop caring, and simply to find little ways to comfort.

It was this that sustained Tom. Memories of stupid little things, the fact that sometimes he would count his own fingers one-hundred times a day. Simply to fill his head with trivial things; things that were safe, easy, and peculiar. Tom in quick succession again stared at the cracked open box and in thought found himself again sucked to a familiar place.

“Seven-Two-Seven”--

One two three four five six seven:

One, two.

One two three four five six seven:

One, two.

One two three four five six seven:

One, two.

He continued on like this for some time. Only to trail off again after sensing that the last one had ended properly. He fell back in his leather, spring loaded, antique style chair.

“Two-Hundred-Thirty-Two-and-ninety-nine”

He thought

“A chair of exceptional quality.”

“A sure addition to any professional office.”

He felt himself pulled again to the white shining box sitting before him. A box all too familiar at this point. It struck an imposing mark in Tom. Sitting there ready it seemed to pat him on the back, at the moment of his recitation.

Tom instinctively knew that the world did not work that way. He knew that it was up to men to make their fortunes. Up to boys to give up their wild ambitions, knuckle the grindstone, and be what the world called him to be. Not wild. Not ambitious. Instead, crude and exacting, cunning and hungry. It was these lessons that Tom would teach, if only through osmosis to his own children. It was this that Tom’s overalled father had taught him. And it was this that even the lanky black suited man had come to teach Tom once again.

It was that man who brought here this spot upon Tom’s desk. It was, Tom knew exactly what had been promised to him, that day he left. It was, Tom knew that which had bought his silence. The day his father raised his hand for the last. The day that the great bear spirit fell down from the sky, soaked up all that his father had hated in Tom’s mother, and hid her songs in the great expanse of the cold of those Virginia mountains.

Tom fell back again to his chair reciting exactly what he had already known from the moment the old man had walked into that office.

“Twenty-thousand-dollars.”

“A promise of exceptional quality”

“An addition much needed to any life of excellence”

“Carved by hand to flesh and left in stone.”

Tom slowly moved his fingers toward the box.

“Seven-Two-Seven.”

“Seven-Two-Seven.”

His fingers trapped in time.

“Seven. Two. Seven”

His eyes closed and again he could see the face he had so long tried to forget. His hand could feel the cool metal playing at his fingertips. He felt himself want to scream as hot wet tears filled his eyes. Then with one solid fluid motion as a man harvesting in the old way he flung it open. There was silence. His eyes still closed. And in the silence remaining after the heavy clanging of the lid to desk, Tom could hear again.

“Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ra,

Too-ra-loo-ra-li,

Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ra,

Hush, now don't you cry!