Short Stories

The Man by the Field

The man by the field never quite understood the growth of life. He looked at the roots of golden stalks of cut corn and wondered how the surrounding soil could provide such existence. He looked at the cloud-speckled sky and wondered how the filthy air was still breathable. Often, he'd walk out after a light drizzle of rain, inhale deep then exhale, smelling the delicate but sharp scent of nature. The neighbors supposed he was crazy. He was an old man, of course. The suspenders, the light gray hairs on his head. The silver lined glasses that he constantly pushed up the bridge of his nose and the need to always have his withered hands in the pockets of his jeans. He never moved from the edge of that cornfield except to adjust his glasses or to go inside his home. Every day, the man by the field would just stare. He'd watch the tractors till and plant. Watched the small sprouts start to surface then grow taller than himself. The wonder of how a compacted, floating piece of nature just moved about so freely, often flooded his mind. Why we spin in a circle and not a triangle, or why we even spun at all. The reflection of light, gravity, biology. All things that, if thought back enough, have a complicated explanation or perhaps no explanation at all. That's still what the man was thinking of, even as his lungs struggled to take last breaths, when his heart failed to pump one more time, when his knees hit the ground. His eyes fluttered shut while staring at the unexplainable sky, the unexplainable air no more. When his essence no longer existed, he thought back far enough to no explanation of life at all.