Last weekend, I participated in WritersWeekly.com‘s 24-hour short story contest. It’s a seasonal competition in which writers have a mere 24 hours to create a story, no bigger than 1,000 words, based upon a given prompt. Here was the prompt -
Weeks of obsessive tending and gentle turning ensured a blue
ribbon for his biggest pumpkin next weekend. His chest puffed
with impending pride as he fantasized about the envious stares of
the other town folk, especially that pretty, stuck-up woman next
door, who always looked through him, not at him.
The cold wind started again and he shivered, watching the sky
darken too quickly. As bright, painted leaves rained on his crop,
he instinctively turned his head toward an infant’s cry. At the
top of the hill, under the old Maple, his stuck-up neighbor was
shielding a bundle from the wind, fumbling with her blouse…
And here was my story which I titled Sincerely, the Land -
It had been years since Roy Reese had made the ten minute hike to the old Maple tree. As a child, Roy made the trek a daily ritual. He would climb up the trunk and onto the lower limbs. There was a dip in the one of them and this was where Roy lay, the Maple holding him as if it were King Kong. Roy fit into the palm of its hand. It was from his elevated perch that Roy could see beyond his family’s land, past the corn stalks, the pumpkin rows. There were other houses, farms like his, down the road a ways, and Roy could even see past these. There was a horizon that seemed to mark the end of the world.
But the earth continued, far beyond the horizon. Roy still knew this, even though he didn’t fit into the Maple’s palms like he used to. His next-door neighbor was a constant reminder. She was from beyond the horizon, some city that Roy had never visited. Although, at night, Roy could see the lights on in her bedroom, he didn’t even know her name. When she had moved there, two years ago, Roy had left a welcoming gift on her front porch, a pumpkin that by its color alone would’ve made any room feel warmer on a fall evening. He never heard back from her and Roy took this to mean that the woman had dismissed it either because she wasn’t interested in neighborly relations or was disgusted with her change of scenery. She had left a paved road for a dirt one, the view of storied buildings for a natural landscape. To Roy, her nose seemed always turned up, like it was desperately trying to preserve the smell of a better existence.
It was the Tuesday before the state fair and Roy was busy primping his prized pumpkin when he saw the woman up the hill. There she was, under the Maple wearing a red gingham dress. On her head sat a straw hat adorned with a band of matching fabric. She was trying to climb the Maple, attempting to jump up and grab the lowest limb. She was barefoot and couldn’t gain the proper footing to propel herself into the Maple’s embrace.
Serves her right, Roy thought. The lady is dressed like she’s attending a picnic on the bayou. It was amazing to Roy that the skill of looking out a window in the morning and gauging the day’s weather from the rustle of tree leafs was not an inherent one in some individuals. He smiled. The woman didn’t have it all.
Roy’s pleasure in the woman’s failure was short lived because just as he turned again, turning his gaze back to the ribs of his prized pumpkin, he heard the woman’s cry echoing down from the hill. She was on the ground now, a biplane struck down by King Kong’s fist. Roy thought nothing of it at first. It was his Maple after all. There was a history between them and it was no coincidence that, just as the woman had dismissed his welcome gift, the Maple had dismissed her.
But the woman’s cries didn’t cease and there reached a point that Roy could not ignore her exclaims any longer. He looked towards the Maple once more and saw that she had failed to move since her cries began. Either she had ripped her dress and was deep in mourning or she had suffered a serious bodily injury. Regardless of her pretense, if the woman was in danger, Roy could not let such a thing lay on his conscious. He dropped the pumpkin, placing it gently so as to not dent it, and broke into a run.
As he crossed the woman’s lawn, his shins battling the high ferns with each stride, Roy stole a glance at the back of her house. A wooden lawn chair looked out onto the hill. A table with an open book and a full glass of iced tea stood beside it. A peaceful afternoon had gone awry.
Roy climbed the hill, slipping on the loose dirt like he was twelve years old again and in a hurry. He grabbed hold of protruding trunks, propelling himself onward. There was no time for resting. The woman’s cries had stopped, but Roy was close enough now to hear her breathing heavily, seemingly resigned that no one was coming.
With one last burst of effort, Roy entered the clearing on which the Maple lived. The woman looked up, her pain giving way to terror.
“Who are you?” she screamed, trying to stand but falling. “What do you want?”
“Are you ok?” Roy said.
“Get away from me.”
“I’m here to help.”
“Who are you?” she asked again, timid like she had never before had a prayer answered.
“I’m your neighbor, Roy Reese.”
The woman said nothing, but stared back like she couldn’t believe that she hadn’t come to that conclusion on her own. Of course, her eyes said as they rolled back, there’s no one else within a mile of here. She liked to think that there was no one around at all, to imagine that Reese Farm didn’t exist. Her home was the only house on the market at the time of her move, and while it wasn’t completely secluded, it was good enough – the price was right. She could turn the lawn furniture and plant the garden facing the opposite way, towards the hills. The pumpkin arrived on her front porch one morning and dreamily, she thought it was a gift from the land itself, a personal thank you for the company she would supply it for years to come.
The clearing was just as Roy had remembered, with short grass like all of the hill’s nutrients were reserved for the Maple. The hill was its throne, and from its elevated position it looked out onto the fields graciously, giving its kingdom life itself.
