November's End

Golden Waves of Wheat

     I recall spending my youth in a small town where secluded houses blended within the miles of swaying wheat. I remember living in isolation as a child, inhaling the brisk air in the cooler months as my mother worked diligently to prepare morsels for the coming winter. As dusk approached, I clung to my mother's blouse as she would wander off into the wheat to adjust the scarecrow we kept nearby; yet the crows hadn't a shadow of fear off the poor fellow. The crows would tear apart his attire and leave scraps scattered among the plains as a marker to lead the way home.
     My mother would replace his limbs although she knew it to be a wasteful effort, yet she believed it brought us company and would swiftly repair its damage as its crooked smile slowly deteriorated. As the wind's strength overpowered the scarecrow the sound of the teetering puppet would resound throughout our feeble walls and enforce that my reluctance to fall asleep was justified.
     One of these nights, my mother and I parted the sea of dusk-glazed wheat to make our weekly rounds to the scarecrow; this time we could hear a faint whimpering among the wind's solemn ballad, and we inched towards it. Adhering to the rotting foundation of the scarecrow was a silhouette of a boy around my age. He was taller than me and his blonde locks were almost indistinguishable among the setting; he trembled as he cried.
     My mother brought him home with us and promised to return him to his home as soon as the rooster's crow emitted, yet he seemed hesitant. My mother instructed me to lead him to the guest room; a minute cubicle layered in malignant dust and musty debris. I led him there yet not a word was spoken between us. I showed him to his room with haste, and when he stepped through the door frame he let out a sigh and he smiled at me. I returned the expression and asked him why he had been crying. He responded in a soft and neutral tone that he had seen his father and mother bickering, and when the fighting reached a frightening climax, he ran away. I lived only with my mother, and I had never seen her panic or stress, and until later in my life I would never see such negativities.
     The next morning an old pickup truck with peeling paint pulled onto our land. My gaze traced the stretching crack on the windshield that seemed to climb it's way across the anterior of the truck. A short and stout woman hobbled out of that truck. She meandered towards the boy and I as my mother watched close from the screen of our front door. Earlier, my mother had interrogated the boy and contacted his guardian. I assumed the broad madam before me was his mother.
     She thanked me for taking care of her disobedient son, and she extended her arm and dug her nails into the boy's shoulder. He winced in silent pain as he was impaled like a limp poppet and directed towards the truck only feet away. When his mother thought she had exited my range of hearing, she clenched his ear and dragged him hurriedly and mumbled atrocities below her breath. Before I could register his ephemeral inhabitance, he was already far from me; leaving behind a puff of smog from the gruesome truck.
     That was the first time I had met the boy. Similarly to his first meeting, he would wind up beneath the swaying skeleton of the  scarecrow, clenching it as if there were a translucent lifeline within its foundation. This scene of departure replayed monthly, and then weekly as time progressed. Soon the boy had been inducted into our measly home.
     Within a few sublime years we were teenagers. We would roll upon the rolling hills and daydream and knot twine with our nimble fingers. We would tie dandelions and concoct crowns of golden lilies off of the bank of a river far from our property. The riverbed and tributary were my favorite places. He and I would fumble through the soft earth and pick roots from the bank while my mother waited anxiously at home hearing the hearth. The brisk, crisp air and the silky stream of vibrant pebbles and cool water gave me memories I couldn't possibly forget.
     I can recall once when I created a small wristband of twine and furnished it with vital flowers to adorn it. It was a simple gesture that symbolized the growing connection I had felt towards the boy, and he smiled a smile wider than any horizon and more vivid than any pebbles shining through any swift stream. He wore it with pride and it comforted my heart in small, fluttery intervals. The day after my gift, the situation had changed.
     I met him at the scarecrow behind a path we had cleared just for him and I. When my eyes met his bronze complexion, I was immediately drawn towards the array of fresh bruises coating his epidermis. There was dried blood seeping through his pores and a scathing scar across his cheek appeared almost painted as it reached the nape of his neck. Upon evaluation, I learned that his father had noticed the wristband and insulted him, saying that boys and flowers didn't mix. His father attempted to rip off the band and he defended himself. All I could assume is his act of self-preservation had insulted his father.
     In those ripe years of adolescence, we had given much to each other. He had willingly taken my first kiss and rested within the slot of my first love. He lived with us now, he declared independence from his abusive parents. The fissure between us was permanently sealed and I was vulnerable to his soft tone and cunning words. Through him I could envision everything I wanted to be, and every part of my being knew that it was insufficient without his presence.
     Now we were young adults, we had graduated and were ready to begin our lives together as individuals. We promised we would not end up like our parents. He decided he wanted to become a lawyer and move to a college in a state I had never even heard of. My fantasy occupation was different, my dream was to become a journalist and reconcile my adventurous spirit of my childhood by keeping up and recording current events. A minor college was positioned near the college he chose, so I left behind everything I owned and followed him to this foreign world.
     We reached our destination after a weeklong drive across mountains and contrasting country. We reached the city in which we would be occupying, and our hopes were enlightened once we reached the apartment we would call our home. It was shabby and the paint peeled and there were leaky facets and crumbling wooden planks, but for once in my life I was proud of myself for where I was. I was so curious and unprepared for the future ahead of me.
      That night, he proposed to me on the balcony among the sounds of writhing crickets and crackling wood. I remember the scent of November lingered as fireflies illuminated the blank space between us. That night I was no longer a young girl, I was a woman beginning a life of fruition and happiness. I was a woman who would spend the remainder of her life with the man who had melded their hearts as one, and I was the woman who would grow old with the one who lingered behind her through every stage of her life. On that night, as the waning crescent shone upon us and the scent of tinsel and chestnuts clouded my senses, I was the happiest girl alive.
      Throughout the next few months I began to work as a waitress to pay for the expenses of my fiancé to go to school for law. Financially, things were rough, yet that hadn't held us back one bit when I announced my pregnancy to my fiancé. We didn't know how we were going to arrange our budget to accommodate a child, yet we were youthful and full of vitality, we hadn't a care in the world. He promised to pick up a job and the side and I would work overtime and we would make do with tips and an extra occupation. We had decided our routine and we had so much to be excited for, until the following November when I received a call from the local hospital.
     During the third trimester of my pregnancy, my fiancé had been hit by a drunk driver on a nearby rode, only miles from our home. I remember collapsing to the floor and sulking as the wood of our crumbling apartment soaked in each and every tear. I sobbed and yelled until the neighbors knocked on my door, demanding the silence of my pain. I couldn't stop.
     I visited him every day after my shift, I circled my thumb over his palm like he would for me when I was startled. I introduced him to our newborn baby boy, yet he bore no expression. He was in a coma, and he would be for the next year. I broke down one night, alone and horrified at what my life was becoming. For the time being I was a single mother living with the uncertainty that my fiancé would live to see another day. I took many more hours than I was capable of, I had no friends to watch my child. I brought him with me to work, and after pleading with my manager she allowed it after threatening to fire me one day. My colleagues at work noticed my struggles, get brushed them off like they would a pesky fly. After all, I was never very sociable with them to begin with.
    One day, my fiancé woke up. I rejoiced and shed tears believing my hardships were through. Yet, he didn't return my explicable happiness. He didn't remember me at all.
     I worked diligently to get my fiancé back on his feet, and I cried to him every night, yet he could never reciprocate what I was feeling. He wasn't the boy that clung to the scarecrow in the wheat fields, he was a husk of a man, hollowed out by the coma. He didn't smile when I introduced him to our child. He brushed it off, and after a lifetime of swearing ourselves to each other, he effortlessly conveyed the words that broke me.

He told me he didn't love me anymore.

     Months after he returned to me as a solemn husk, he returned to the part-time job he had begun. As soon as he could, he moved out, leaving me with a desperate child and a debt I could never repay. I heard through the grapevine that he went to live with a women he met from work, that they were happy. I wanted to be happy too.
     My heart was shattered into pieces of gilded glass and the hole could not be occupied  by much of anything. I had no taste for alcohol, and even if I did, I couldn't afford such the bitter liquid. Not before long, I was evicted from the apartment I invested my future into, while my ex-fiancé lived in leisure with his new girlfriend, he ended up marrying her one day. I didn't have that luxury, although I prayed and begged and yearned that one day he would return. Instead I returned to my mother in the country.
     Time ran its course, and soon my son was a reckless teenager, he had so much spirit, yet the fields of grain were not the medium he used to convey it. I knew he belonged somewhere greater.
     My boy met a young girl in her teens while wandering late at night through the clearing that was so familiar to me. They had a connection unlike the one I had when I was their age, they accommodated both of their futures. They truly wanted to love each other until the end of time, and upon reflection, I noticed my naive love for my fiancé was unrequited in a way. We promised to stay together forever, yet his forever was considerably shorter than mine.
     I believe I truly did live through my son, yet the memories closest and most elaborate in my heart are those of my childhood, those of the crooked scarecrow and those of the nature and expansive landscape surrounding me. I did leave out many details of my life, although they occurred, they did not take precedence. I have lived a life of hardship and uncertainty, and although the pain seemed too much at points, I can say with utmost confidence that I made it, and I survived on my own.
    I am at the anticlimactic conclusion of my life, and I realize this. I've worded this eulogy of my own to summarize my life, to let others know that I have released all of my regrets and set them among the endless whisper of the wind. And I conclude with the certainty that I am happy. Indeed, I am finally happy.