Silence Pooling like Dust by Steve Gerson, Sun Tea

Silence Pooling like Dust

The land, devoid of soul, hard as caliche, surrounded her farmhouse in silence.  Inside, silence pooled in the corners like dust and cobwebbed the windows.  Outside, no tractors chugged.  No horses whinnied in the paddock.  No children played among the hay bales. 

The front yard For Sale sign hung askew on three rusted nails, the other nail having worn out and left.   Even the letters were hard to read, the paint having been scoured by time flying like sand in a windstorm. 

There were no takers for the land, so it sat there, sullen.

She now lived in Cottonwood Falls, ten miles from the farm, halfway between Kansas City and Wichita, in a care facility.  Joe, her husband, had died six years ago, buried under the land’s demands.  Her sons, neither of them wanting the land’s debt nor their dad’s fate, moved away, one to Dallas, one to Denver. 

She was alone in the company of silence.

“How you doin’?” a caregiver asked one morning. 

Never one to complain, having learned that lesson from the land, which didn’t ask if you were too cold or too hot, she said, “Doin’ fine, doin’ fine.”

“Can I get you anything?”

What could she say to that?  She’d like her sons back.  She’d like her husband back.  She’d like the land back, where freedom was right outside the front door.  When the land was green and her sons were growing into men, she’d watch the sun rise from the kitchen window.  Breakfast aromas wafted like dreams.  She’d hear her husband whistling George Strait’s “Heartland”:  “the way a good man works until the daylight’s gone.”  She and he milked the cows, fixed the fences, baled the hay, and owned something—their time together building their life.  Then, the land seemed to be their ally.

But bodies fail like wood rots.  Spring breezes become winter’s hail.  The land sometimes turns like a sudden black-cloud storm churning.  And sound disappears when the door slams shut.

So she thought, “What do I want?”

“Can you get me some noise, please?  I’ve got too much silence living in my head.”

About the author

 

 

steve Gerson writes poetry and flash about life's dissonance. He has published in many journals plus his 11 chapbooks: Once Planed Straight; Viral; And the Land Dreams Darkly; The 13th Floor; What Is Isn’t; There Is a Season; Have Not; Who Am I Today; Dystopia; Grim; and Through Shadows/i> Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the author the other half goes to expenses e.g. Maintaining the web site and setting up The Best of Café Lit book each year.