Stitches sighs, wiping sweat from his brow under a straw hat. He licks his dry lips and looks up at the blazing and setting sun. After this he removes his leather gloved hands from the small mound in which he had just buried the roots of a sapling into a bright green clearing of grass next to a moderately sized pool of water. He mumbles angrily, “Not a cloud, huh?” as he looks down from the hot and horrific ball of light that dominates the sky to make sure the slight hill of a newly planted soon-to-be-tree was just right after he left it alone. He stands up afterwards, wiping his glove-covered hands of stray soil and placing his hands on his hips proudly before stating in a whisper, “Someday someone will lay under you my little friend, long after I’ve gone.”
He chuckles and turns back to spot the large farmhouse and the barn on the other side of it from where he stands. He shakes his head and moves out, stepping across the property, passing his front porch and door, and over towards the large wooden structure. He removes the gloves as he passes the stairs up his porch, and tosses them upon the steps. His feet carry him into the barn, looking across the large and mostly empty room. There are hay piles in stacks and rolls about the place, and a layer of it covers the dirt floor. Up higher, a loft that sees not much use, stores a grand amount of the feed, and below the platform a singular cow looks up to him and chews errantly. Stitches smiles and nods, “Afternoon, Tomato.” He says as he steps up to the animal.
Tomato couldn’t care less about Stitches or her ridiculous name, chewing and looking away from him as she eyes up some tasty morsels upon the ground. Stitches sighs and places his hand on Tomato’s back gently, rubbing her in a gentle pet as he speaks, “It’s been a busy one. I’ve been trying to plant that little tree since before the sun was up this morning.” He chuckles, “You were probably asleep, Toto. You’re a lazy one at those times.”
Tomato isn’t as responsive as Bread. Bread nickers or whinnys, usually responding to his presence most affectionately. Tomato doesn’t do anything, Tomato is off in her own world. His words fall on deaf and misunderstanding cow ears. Still, Stitches is determined to be her friend, and pats her side gently as he looks out the open barn doors, “I gotta close you in for the night girl, of course. You don’t mind Bread staying here with you until I get the stable built, as usual, right?” He asks with a smile, “Wherever he’s run off to.”
Stitches leaves the silent and uncaring Tomato and strolls out onto the grass, and it is there his eye sets on his loyal steed who loafs about nearby. With little to no trouble, he rounds his friend up and closes the two animals safely within the barn, then checking briefly on the adjacent field of crops he was tending this season. He takes the straw hat off, his hair well cut and kept, his stubble trimmed and his face bright with the prospect of the future he’s built for himself.
“My love!” A female voice calls from the front of the house.
Stitches looks back to the farmhouse, but the blinding sun sets just so on his porch, obscuring the face and figure of the woman who had called out. He tries to hold his hand up to get a better look, but it’s unclear. It’s certain that her stomach is rounded with a child, and in her arms is a babe, likely a little older than a year or so. Unable to see her face, he steps forward, “What?” He calls back.
The woman laughs loudly, but her voice is indiscernible to him when she responds, as though it could belong to one of many people, “Get in here, love, dinner is ready.”
Sudden confusion hits him, as he should certainly know who this is, the one who addresses him so fondly. Why can’t he remember? As the sun keeps lowering, casting the woman in shadow and creating a silhouette in her and the child’s image, he steps forward faster and gently asks with an uncertain voice, “Wait…hold on.”
The world gets much darker much quicker, with the woman falling into the swift darkness. The house, the sapling past it, the pool of water, the sun and the horizon, all of it falls victim to an ever impending void. Stitches turns around and desperately calls out, “Bread!” For his horse.
The barn is gone by then too. Then the field, and finally the ground dissipates beneath him. He falls with a sharp cry of surprise, then plummets further and further until finally landing on the ground and awakening from his dream.
After the fall he sits up from his half lay on a canted tree near the manor he inhabits. He looks around and sees nothing from his vision of paradise. He spies empty bottles near his legs, and Bread a little way off, tied to a post and feasting on some clovers. Stitches looks up and frowns as the sky is filled with night. He sighs and leans back, closing his eyes again and wondering.
Will it ever be?
