His Grandmothers Farm 0 comments
published in
2009-10-16 07:38:00
quote
1 floor
A small dirty boy in grubby blue shorts with thin bony ankles dragged a dead stick down the potholed gravel driveway as he walked away from the house towards the white metal gate. A Hereford stee ...
A small dirty boy in grubby blue shorts with thin bony ankles dragged a dead stick down the potholed gravel driveway as he walked away from the house towards the white me
The boy passed the large bullant nest on the ground near the edge of his grandmothers carefully kept lawn the edge of an oasis of order( it might have been the known world) which was the only thing to cool or comfort the eye in an otherwize harsh wretched and weathered landscape baked and beaten into monotonous dry tones by the sun. He stood as close to the ants nest as he dared. His grandmother had warned him not to go near it. And he looked down at the little copper soldiers with their mean black eyes and alien jaws. One had strayed out from the others. A sentry doing its nameless duty. The boy taunted it with the toe of his shoe and the ant leaned back on its legs lifted its head back and opened its jaws at him in challenge. A slight sparkle flickered in the boys eyes at this futile act of defiance. The boy picked up a stone and dropped it on the mound watching with delight as the ants started scurrying around madly to protect themselves against this sudden threat from above. The boy had a vague bitter unknown feeling in his heart. As bitter as those menacing little jaws and copper abdomens would taste in his mouth he well knew. He looked behind him and could see his grandmother fighting with a lime green sheet on the clothes line strung between the two huge twisting grey gums. She fought with her washing each day in the high hot wind that swept up from the valley and over the brow of the hill where the house was situated. Seeing that she wasnt watching the boy kicked at the nest and gouged his stick in the hole from which the ants had been streaming obliterating it then continued up the driveway waving the stick like a sword and feeling powerful.
As he neared the gate thoughts of his mother flooded his head and the hated feeling of coming tears started to well hot in his neck and climbing up his cheeks. He bl
Each time he heard the approaching sound of tyres hurtling along the gravel he hoped knowing full well that he decieved himself that he would hear the car slowing as it came to the top of the hill preparing to turn. Not speeding by as they always did. He hoped to see his mothers placid smiling face behind the windscreen. Partially obscured by the shadows and reflections cast by the gums that lined the edge of the road. It became a game he played with himself in between the waves of hot tears that came with the image of his mother through the windscreen to pas9b2s the agonizingly long hours of the days he spent on his grandmothers farm.
The boy looked again over his shoulder and caught the figure of his grandmother now fighting with a brilliantly white pillowcase between the two gums. She was absorbed in her task and Bentley the beagle was distracting her with his mournful barking that disappeared in the wind before it could reach his ears. The land was singing with heat. The boy could almost hear it crackle in the silence under the cruel mocking sun so unforgiving that pressed down hour after hour.
The boy strained his ears listening for the sound of a car and looked out over the countryside in the direction he thought his mother would come from. You could always hear them coming along time before you saw them. They were so infrequent that he often sat on the gate post for an hour or more in silence before he heard the sound of tyres crunching furiously over gravel coming. At first vaguely then louder. And finally the dust cloud would rise and a strange vehicle would crest the hill and zing by stones cracking and spluttering up in the wheel wells and underneath. And the boy would crane his neck. Looking to see if it was her.
His mind filled with longing thoughts of his mother and fleeting memories of his grandmothers nervous darting eyes when he broke the silence of the empty kitchen at night and asked when his mum was coming to get him. His grandfather would briefly peer at him over the top of his paper look over at his grandmother questioningly perhaps accusingly clear his throat rustle his paper then disappear again behind it for the rest of the evening without saying a word to the boy.
The boy sat on the gate post looking at the road. The tears came suddenly and unwillingly. And in truth he didnt know why. He heard his grandmother calling him somehow faintly through the hot wind. and the sizzling heat. He turned his head slightly and saw her waving her arms wildly at him in his peripheral vision. The boy sucked in great draughts of hot air and was conscious of not rubbing his eyes too much for fear of making them redder. He pretended he hadnt heard her just for a few seconds longer.
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