The Farmer's Son

Chapter 28 All Paths Through The Field Lead Home

"Alan!" Ray yelled.

He ran after the other, out the door and across the garden, but at the edge of the dark foreboding wall of corn he skidded to a halt. He'd never been in the corn at night, could barely find his way out when the sun was up. But he could hear Alan moving further and further away from him, and Ray had the irrational fear that if he waited too long, Alan would be lost to him forever.

Ray plunged into the corn. Sharp stalks lashed his face and raised arms, disturbed dust swirled up, sticking to his skin and inside his throat, choking him. Some insects went quiet at the intrusion, but others continued to drone, buzzing in his ear and pricking at his skin. After about a dozen feet he stopped, unaware of how far he'd gone, or which direction he now faced. Overhead, between the tops of stalks and leaves, a narrow strip of starry sky was visible, but Ray had never learned to navigate by the stars.

And then, standing alone in the tall, claustrophobia corn, out of breath and trying to keep his rising panic down, Ray heard it—the sound of crying. He quieted his breathing. Closing his eyes and frowning, he concentrated on the sound. His head turned this way, then that, then like a compass needle finding magnetic north, it locked in. Opening his eyes, he plunged once more through the corn. When he burst through a row into an intersection, he almost tripped over a body lying on the ground.

It was Alan.

On his back with his knees up, Alan wept quietly, sound muffled by his arms crossed over his face, body shaking with jagged breaths.

In the ambient starlight Ray could only see the vague shape of the other young man. With labored breathed, Ray slumped forward, hands on his knees, then he dropped to the ground, kneeling beside the shaking body.

"Alan..." Ray called softly, sadly, helplessly. "Alan, please..."

"Please what?" came the broken whisper.

"Tell me...what you want from me," Ray said, at a complete lost. "What do you want from me, Alan? Do you want me to leave?"

"If that's what you think, then you really don't get it," Alan said, voice choked. "But I guess you don't really have to. Because you might be stuck here, just like me, for now. But when the season is over, you can leave."

"But you're not stuck," Ray said emphatically, shuffling forward on his knees through the dirt and dried leaves. "That might be how you feel, but that's not the truth."

"Yes, it is!" Alan said through clenched teeth. "I am stuck on this farm. Stuck between a place I love and the world I'm dying to see. And does it matter? I'm either going to live long enough to see it decay into nothing, or let it be taken away. Either way I'll have to watch my father die of heartbreak, and there's nothing I can do about it. Nothing, nothing, nothing..."

"But you are doing something about it," Ray insisted. "You went out, you learned new techniques. You came up with a way for all the landowners to profit from a farm that went under! And you can leave."

Slumping forward, Ray braced his hands on the ground. "You can leave," he repeated, voice softer and fragile, "and know that there will always be a place for you to come back to. You don't know how much I would give to have that."

"You could have that here."

Ray's heart skipped a beat, his eyes widening and breath catching.

"But you don't want it here," Alan continued quietly. "Because he's not here."

Now the caught breath stabbed into Ray, his chest constricting, tightening to the point of pain. He closed his eyes and forced a deep breath. "That's right," Ray said, eyes still closed, speaking almost to himself. "He's not here."