BrigitsFlame, September - Week 3
Jim McReeves sat in the middle of a sunflower field with his sister’s stolen treasure.
It wasn’t all that special, really. He couldn’t fathom why it held so much importance for her-it wasn’t nearly as cool as his G.I. Joe Super Action-Chop! action figure, that’s for sure. No hidden knives or guns, and no bendable-dependable, armor-enforced, plastic body with changeable hats and weapons. Just a glass horse figurine that could fit within the palm of his hand, with golden-dolloped hooves and mane. The clear, blue sky’s enormous, stretching lengths dotted by whipped, fluffy clouds and underneath which reaching horizons of green and yellow and brown lay, was bent and distorted to myriads of earthy tones plus blue in the hard, golden beady eyes. The body of the horse-clear, smooth, cool glass-glinted a different brightness in the sunlight, reflecting the world just as crookedly but still beautifully as the eyes. There was more blue swirling in its depths when held towards the sky, Jim noticed with squinting eyes. The sun shone harshly in its tail as yellow-brown-topped stalks danced gently in the breeze…
-like the way but then oh god so unlike the way the rice patties whipped back and forth, sometimes tickling and sometimes striking Jim’s crumpled body burnt to crisped by misfired napalm that would be reported by a man in uniform with a solemn face and a stiffly-folded American flag to Jim’s sobbing, shaking mother as a MIA, and here is his purple heart, ma’am-
Okay, so maybe it was decent to look at. Pretty, Jim would admit-pretty enough a girl would fancy it. But still.
She kept it in an exotic-looking, beige pillow-reminiscent snap-box with white silk on the inside to cushion the small figurine. The box always, always stayed by her lamp on her nightstand-unless she was showing it off to her annoying, shrill friends-so she could reach over and look at it whenever she lay or sit on her bed. No one was ever to touch it, and she was talking to him, Jimbo E. McGreeves, so he’d better not! And if he did she’d tell Momma and Father on him. Jim scowled, placing the horse on the ground next to his shoe, so he could scuff some dirt toward it and see how long it would last standing up. He didn’t know where she’d gotten it; probably from her latest boyfriend or something, the one she knew was the one, or some nonsense. Jim made a quiet gagging noise, and the horse dipped forward with the weight of the dirt, as if agreeing empathetically.
-like the way but oh god so unlike the way Jim had barfed all over his bed after waking up from nightmares of Jenne, the one he knew was finally the one, marrying some other guy while he was in these shitty jungles, that blended into armies of crying native children, skin hanging off limbs and eyes missing and brains blown in-
Jim shoved the glass horse into his overall pocket and leaned back among the sunflower stalks, feeling the dirt under his fingertips as he stretched into the ground. It smelled good; it always smelled good, fresh and alive, out here in the stalks. What Jim loved about living on a sunflower farm! He used to get made fun of and get called “flowergirl” when he first started grade school, but then he’d beaten up Tommy Lewis and now most the kids were fine about it. Jim let a handful of dirt trickle out though fingers paler-looking than they actually are because of the amount of rich, dark soil covering them.
-like the way but oh god so unlike the way Jim’s sweaty, smudged face had paled considerably when his mother interrupted his washing dirt out from underneath fingernails after he’d come in from a long day of working the green fields he had thought he’d soon get to own in order to tell him his numbers for the draft had finally been called-
With the last two years, the teasing had switched over completely to curiosity from the majority of Jim’s female classmates. Curiosity that usually consisted of questions about sunflowers, batting of eyes, and then asking for a flower, oh please Jimbo? At first Jim was annoyed by the flirting he had yet to understand, but turned out not to mind so much when he noticed the looks he was receiving from his male classmates: looks of either awe or envy!
-like the way Tom Lewis’ face had looked when he spotted Jim giving Jenne a big, colorful and fresh-smelling sunflower during the first date at the town’s drive-in theater, the theater every teenager in town went to on any given Saturday night so Tom knew he couldn’t be the only one seeing this and Jim couldn’t help but grin wider when he saw Tom realizing this and Jim couldn’t help but laugh a little and blush proudly as Jenne gave him her first kiss as a thank-you-
Jim blew at the fly trying to settle on a stalk leaf near his face. He wondered when his mother would ring the big bell for lunch. He'd have to get back to the house before his father when that happened, so his father wouldn't find out he'd been out in the stalks again. Jim flinched at the idea of a couple smacks from his father; it was never a pleasant experience. But he couldn't help it! The stalks were so peaceful and full of all types of bugs--he'd once caught a pray mantis! And this one time, he'd found a dead bird! He brought it back to the house to show his mother, but his sister found it first and tattled to his father. Since then, Jim had been forbidden to go out to the stalks by himself. Jim had never been so mad at his father when he'd told Jim that, even though his father gave him all sorts of neat stuff like butterfly wings and lightening bugs and his old war helmet.
--like the way his father had given Jim's sister a glass horse figurine on her thirteenth birthday that he told her to keep near her always, and Jim had complained so loud and long even though he didn't know how to talk proper yet that his father had to give him a leather-strap bracelet that his father had given him so Jim would shut up and be able to chew on something without hurting himself--
Taking the glass horse back out of his pocket, he squinted up at it as he let the sun sparkle through the body a billion times brighter than it could in the sky; the mane and hooves glinted a brighter gold. Jim decided the only way you should look at the dumb horse was outside. He turned it slowly, watching the sparkled light fade and intensify. Like the way his grandmother could tell what mood he was in, since the sparkle in his eyes faded and intensified. And if it ever went out, he’d be dead! Jim made sure to smile a lot because of that. Jim smiled, both because the light from the horse’s body confused a fly and for good measure.
Jim McReeves lay in the middle of a sunflower field, and wondered at the sparkles and marvels of the world only as a child can. The world wondered how long he’d keep that sparkle and marvel, and the sun began its descent.