Robert Flournoy
©
Copyright
2023 by Robert Flournoy
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Photo by musicFactory lehmannsound at Pexels.
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My
old truck started sputtering for no reason other than its' age, so I
pulled over to let it catch a breath. Out of boredom, and looking for
things past, I seek out dirt roads in my spare time, which is pretty
much all the time. Something now compelled me to walk back along the
hot dusty road for a hundred steps, picking some black berries out of
the drainage ditch along the way, their twisting tunnels of thorns
entwining with the rotten fence posts that had been there for
generations. When there came a break in the fence, the faint remnants
of an old wagon rutted road emerged for just a glance, its'
impression immediately lost in the decades of greenery that had over
run it. I backed up a few steps and it reappeared, wandering off
across a fallow field toward a distant copse of pine trees. Alone
with the squawks, buzzing and whistles of birds and bees, the
sun beating down from a powder blue August summer sky, I decided to
follow the faint remains of the old wheel ruts to see what might be
revealed. Almost a mirage, the ancient indentations appeared and hid
again as my old boots kicked up the powdered dust that accompanied me
to what my mind saw as a welcome adventure, a break from the mundane
of those who have aged like me.
I
saw the old grave, stone brushed by time, the engraved words faintly
visible when the sun's angle lit them briefly. With a lot of
squinting and light hand brushing, the name Emily looked back at me
over the merciless years. The dates under Emily's name revealed that
she had died eighty years ago at the tender age of 16, almost a woman,
forever a girl. The crumbled ruins of an old home's foundation
appeared, the chimney a collapsed rumble of powdery bricks, a hint of
red still visible in the hard dry ground. I suspected, given the
history of the area and the small size of the home, that Emily and her
family had been share croppers, working the land, sharing the meager
profits with the owner of this small patch of parched, tired dirt. Such
was the economy of the old post Civil War south, hand to mouth work,
dreams that never came true.
What
dreams had this sixteen year old girl embraced, too young to
understand the reality of her situation, trapped in a cast system
that would persist until the participants were released, however
reluctantly, by the arrival of farm machinery and the fertilizers and
insecticides that would slowly kill creatures great and
small.
But, this piece of ground appeared to have been abandoned, never
receiving the fruits of modernization, retaining some originality in
appearance, and, as I was to discover, spirituality.
I
mopped my sweaty brow with a wet shirt sleeve and sat down on the
ground in front of Emily's stone, closing my eyes and listening for
an echo of a young girl's laughter. Surely there had been at least
that, perhaps accompanied by her mother or father's hymnal voices as
they rested at the end of each day. Was Emily black, or white, not
that it mattered, childhood being universal. Did they rest on Sunday,
or did the land demand even that brief respite. In this part of the
deep south Emily's family probably raised cotton, back breaking work,
especially at harvest time. Did they have a cow for milk, chickens
for eggs, and a garden? I imagined so as I drifted off into a sleepy
oblivion, a mid day nap if you will, common to those my age.
On
the verge of my half awake state Emily's gossamer image
appeared, a ghost like apparition, floating, barely in sight.
She wore a yellow dress, dancing just out of reach, alluring,
seductive, innocent and persistent. I knew I was dreaming,
but
grasping at the possibility that a penchant of something real was
beckoning, I went willingly with the dream that flowed out of time
past, wanting this moment to be real, healing, and revealing. She
demurely sat down in front of me, spindly legs crossed in the dust,
smiling, wishing me to join her and understand her story. So, in the
dust mooted fathoms that beckoned from this girl's brief life so long
ago, I did. I felt her dreams, her innocent story boring into
my dozing mind, real and palpable, a flash in time as brief as my own
dance in the universe. I awoke with a startled heart, reaching out to
the floating specter that drifted away, but not before she looked
back at me longingly, thanking me for taking the time to care.
As
I walked back down the ruts and through the fields, trying to make
sense of what I had just dreamed, I could not help but glance
back toward the apparition that I had experienced, my brief brush
with something as true as anything my heart had ever experienced. I
thought I might be losing a small part of my mind when, barely
distinguishable, embedded in a sudden breeze that took my hat, I
heard tired voices singing a haunting ballad. On the far side
of the old pasture there appeared to be a picnic of sorts taking
place. I wandered in that direction and ascertained that there was
indeed a celebration in progress, preceded it appeared by a baptism
in the small creek that ran through the hollow below the field.
I
stood watching, hesitating to intrude, when an old woman with hair as
white as the cotton that had once grown beneath her feet beckoned me
forward with a smile as radiant and warm as the sun that was bright
above us. I was greeted with a glass of lemonade and the invitation
to join in the singing. Braying mules would have been more welcome
than my laughable tune carrying, so I merely smiled and busied my
mouth with the cool drink that I had been handed. I spit out a bug
that had found sanctuary in my mouth as I slept, and saw a most
beautiful child reposing on a quilt with whom I thought to be her
mother. The beneficiary of the recent baptism, she fairly glowed, a
specter out of a dozen or more southern novels. Blond and blushing,
she boldly smiled at me, confident and sure that this was her day,
and hers alone. I couldn't help but think that there was more
in that glance, a challenge to dig deeper.
I
thanked all concerned, and began to walk back toward my truck, which
I hoped had caught its' breath by now. As was the custom of the old
ways, I heard the girl's mother ask her to sing a song, a solo, to
cement her special day. As she began to sing Rock of Ages, I stopped
to listen to that now far off angelic voice, barely a whisper in the
breeze.
My
old truck sputtered in protest as I started it and made my way east
toward home, the shadows stretching out before me, beckoning me to
chase them, an uneasy feeling that they wanted to tell me
something.
I tried to make some sense out of what I had experienced in that
field where hard work, family and faith had sustained who knows how
many generations. Was something calling me from my own past?
As
the sun gave a final wink in my rear window, giving way to dusk, I
had a magic moment of clarity that made me smile, because I suddenly
caught myself whispering the golden child's name. Ah, but of
course.
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