a short story....
... Honey, I'm home....
She pauses to wipe her hands on her well blackened apron after she sets the ladle on a hearth stone and then rushes to embrace her husband. She was worried that he wouldn't get home in time for dinner.
He wandered over to the shelf and picked up his favorite book and then had a seat at the head of the massive oak table that took up most of the kitchen.
Soon a boy-child runs through and swipes a carrot from the basket that she was preparing from and hollers "sorry ma, it's for Patience". Patience being their nine year mare with foal in the paddock by the barn.
"So how was work today?", she asked. He began to prattle off all the problems he encountered in the modern world of men and machines, speaking in what seems a foreign language, and then told her the news of the day.
She went on to tell him about the crows encroaching the corn and that their stallion threw a shoe during their morning ride. How the neighbors had managed to kill off their entire tomato crop with overuse of some pesticide from a salesperson that came knocking a few weeks earlier.
A few stirs of her ladle and there were three bowls set on the table that steamed in the coolness of the kitchen, shaded by towering elm that stood outside the window. Glancing in that direction, the boy-child had his fingers under the napkin that covered dessert that had been set to cool much earlier. She tells the boy to come inside to get his dinner.
She had dreamed of this life since girlhood. Simple and natural living. Her large farm, minimally embellished home (save for her colonial kitchen), and restfulness away from the modern world.
After finishing their dinner, she sent the boy up to his room, where he quickly turned on his stereo that blared some kind of noise unfamiliar. Must be something his friends listen to, she mused. Her husband wandered into the other half of the house where he keeps his twenty-first century comforts.
She tidies up and lets the boy knows it is time for bed. He calls down goodnight, slamming the door, and she can hear that he has his television on, he can't sleep without it.
Going to join her husband, she finds him busily working to solve some problem with a computer and that he regrets that he has no time to spend with her again this evening, so she heads out to the paddock to finish with the horses before the sun's summer light is completely vanished from the sky.
She takes extra care in bringing Patience back into the barn and the stallion follows attentively. After filling their water and grain buckets and tossing in a few packets of hay, she goes to sit on the fence post and watches the sun go down and can't help wondering how simple life can be so woeful to those she loves.
Staring back at the glowing and flickering lights in her window and then up to the sky, she goes back into the barn and brings the stallion on a bridle. Hopping up on the fencepost and then on his bare back, she takes off into the backwood for a starry ride.... alone...
...and then she woke up from her dream.
She pauses to wipe her hands on her well blackened apron after she sets the ladle on a hearth stone and then rushes to embrace her husband. She was worried that he wouldn't get home in time for dinner.
He wandered over to the shelf and picked up his favorite book and then had a seat at the head of the massive oak table that took up most of the kitchen.
Soon a boy-child runs through and swipes a carrot from the basket that she was preparing from and hollers "sorry ma, it's for Patience". Patience being their nine year mare with foal in the paddock by the barn.
"So how was work today?", she asked. He began to prattle off all the problems he encountered in the modern world of men and machines, speaking in what seems a foreign language, and then told her the news of the day.
She went on to tell him about the crows encroaching the corn and that their stallion threw a shoe during their morning ride. How the neighbors had managed to kill off their entire tomato crop with overuse of some pesticide from a salesperson that came knocking a few weeks earlier.
A few stirs of her ladle and there were three bowls set on the table that steamed in the coolness of the kitchen, shaded by towering elm that stood outside the window. Glancing in that direction, the boy-child had his fingers under the napkin that covered dessert that had been set to cool much earlier. She tells the boy to come inside to get his dinner.
She had dreamed of this life since girlhood. Simple and natural living. Her large farm, minimally embellished home (save for her colonial kitchen), and restfulness away from the modern world.
After finishing their dinner, she sent the boy up to his room, where he quickly turned on his stereo that blared some kind of noise unfamiliar. Must be something his friends listen to, she mused. Her husband wandered into the other half of the house where he keeps his twenty-first century comforts.
She tidies up and lets the boy knows it is time for bed. He calls down goodnight, slamming the door, and she can hear that he has his television on, he can't sleep without it.
Going to join her husband, she finds him busily working to solve some problem with a computer and that he regrets that he has no time to spend with her again this evening, so she heads out to the paddock to finish with the horses before the sun's summer light is completely vanished from the sky.
She takes extra care in bringing Patience back into the barn and the stallion follows attentively. After filling their water and grain buckets and tossing in a few packets of hay, she goes to sit on the fence post and watches the sun go down and can't help wondering how simple life can be so woeful to those she loves.
Staring back at the glowing and flickering lights in her window and then up to the sky, she goes back into the barn and brings the stallion on a bridle. Hopping up on the fencepost and then on his bare back, she takes off into the backwood for a starry ride.... alone...
...and then she woke up from her dream.