Onion Grass

I wanted to tell this story before I forgot.

A while back, I learned that the old farmer who found it would eat breakfast at the same diner each and every Wednesday morning. I made sure I was there that day, and waited until he stood to leave before I kindly pulled him aside and asked him if the story were true, and if he’d show it to me. I had been warned about his tired indifference to this request, since most of the people in this side of the state had asked him the same two questions. After I introduced myself, he seemed a little confused, or hard of hearing, and asked me to repeat my name. After I did so, he told me I should follow him to his farm.

It was late October, so the drive to his rural home was a welcome change from my daily life of routine. I was feeling proud of myself for taking this chance and actually following through with a personal goal, even though it might have been perceived as a peculiar one. I watched his old truck ahead of me, slightly swerving on the bumpy dirt road, kicking up clouds of dust that quickly floated off across brown acres of brittle bent corn. According to some folks in the diner, it had been a very dry season and I wondered about this old farmer in front of me, and if his life had been affected by the drought. Admittedly, I know nothing of farming, and my life of gray walls and cubicles started to feel something of an embarrassment to me. A feeling which started with our handshake back at the diner. This old man's hands were massive things. His life of hard work created them, and my hand felt dwarfed and weak being gripped by his.

We turned onto a gravel road lined by enormous sycamore trees. Their patchy flaking bark reminded me of the pieces of a puzzle. They seemed to get taller, wider, and whiter as we got closer to his farm. I watched him drive through an open gate past the last two trees. He parked under a rusty metal carport attached to the side of his barn. Both structures looked like they were pushing into each other, and his garage was winning. The barn looked tired. And unsafe. It was bursting with old farm equipment, tires, hoses, rows of rusted paint cans, and the frames of two old tractors.

And I hoped that he wasn't keeping it inside.

TO BE CONTINUED...