Monday July 28th, 2014

The exercise:

Write about: pockets.

There are random pockets of colder air on the farm that you only notice as you walk through them. I try not to think about them too much.

Except until I finish today's writing.

Mine:

From where I stand I can see the lake to the west and the mountains to the east. The valley runs straight away to the south and curves off to the north.

Facing the lake, the apple trees lurk behind me and the plum trees are to my right. Neither fruit are ripe yet, but it won't be long now. Not with this heat wave.

I watch the workers move about, tools in hand. Pruning shears, wrenches and irrigation parts, ladders short and tall. Everything is moving.

Other than me, of course.

I remember the day, just over there, that I saw my dog for the last time. And a few steps in the opposite direction is where I was standing when I got the phone call that let me know my wife had passed on.

There are other, happier memories within view as well. That apple tree at the end of the row there? I picked my first apple from it, when I was barely big enough to stand. And that house, up at the top of the hill? I was married there, underneath that beautiful oak tree.

People come and go, some passing close but most keeping their distance. Those that step too near seem to shiver involuntarily. From some unseen cold?

Or just because they know that this is the exact spot the tractor rolled over on me?