The Field

The day was unusually warm, the earth damp with sparse patches of half-melted, glistening snow. The small greeneries that signal springtime were just beginning to push through the soil. Two children skipped through the field, laughing and giggling with simple joy. Their kites, brightly hued and spinning high above their heads, foreshadowed the coming season. Their parents followed lazily behind, arms linked, exchanging contented smiles at their exuberant sons. The field was spread out before them, a vast playground full of childlike possibility. The boys were adventurers with swords, spacemen loose in the atmosphere, giant monsters terrorizing the buds of spring, infantry men marching off to war. The parents spread a picnic blanket on a dry piece of land, a patch of red in the middle of green-speckled earth. Curled up beside their basket, they chatted of trivialities and laughed with pleasure at the beauty of the day. They watched their children for a few minutes longer, calling out direction to the elder when the kites went down or when the younger strayed too far. The world held its breath while the youth became whatever they wished, and the day stretched into an afternoon full of escapades and daring storylines before breaking into reality at the summons of their mother. The family sat on the blanket and shared their meal, happy and unified, with the promise of spring unfolding around them, under the brilliance of the afternoon sun. 

-- 

The wind smelled of places far away, gusting whispered kisses through the grass. The long stalks tumbling together sounded like water rushing downstream. Caressing their face with a mother’s touch, the sun warmed the dirt beneath their hands. They squinted into its brilliance even when it hurt their red, swollen eyes. The elder sat next to the younger, neither speaking but both remembering her presence in the field, transient as the passing breeze. The heat penetrated the black of their dress, and after a time the younger began fussing with his buttoned jacket. The elder watched for a moment, and then reached over to help. He pulled the coat off and folded it gently, placed it in the younger’s lap. The younger looked at him, shining eyes reflecting the shaken certainty of their futures, the broken comfort of their home. The elder gazed back, fighting the rising anger and pain. The wind eased through his hair, bringing with it the familiar smells of their town and a trace of the city far away. The elder imagined its grandiosity, which he had never seen; the sounds of the whizzing cars, the colors of the lights, the vertigo of the buildings, the diversity of the people. He thought about their country home, always small to him, now the only place in the world that was too large and empty. He closed his eyes and envisioned her face with an aching in his heart that he’d never before thought possible. He wondered what she would have said to them. Listened to the wind, hoping for an answer. He opened his eyes, his brother’s face replacing the misty memory of his mother’s; the same color eyes, same cheekbones and chin. He thought about how his brother’s laugh was a younger version of hers, and how he hadn’t heard either in days. The wind whispered to him, and the elder put his arm around the younger, and the two turned their faces toward the sky and the tender sun. The breeze stole their silent tears and carried them toward the ocean, where they became another memory of a sunny day and a splintered heart. 

-- 

The night was dark, the sky a deep navy broken only by a few defiantly twinkling stars, daring the teenagers below to stay hidden from their light. The moon struggled to emerge from behind the cover of clouds blowing through after a fall storm. Leaves littered the field, imperceptible in the gloom but audible under the crush of the tires. They killed the headlights and climbed out of the truck’s cab, blinking in the sudden absence of light, fumbling their way to the truck bed. Wordless and nervous, they sat side by side, the younger heavy with anticipation and the elder just as tense though smirking at his brother’s naivety. For a while they only sat, listening to the breeze in the branches and watching the winking stars. The moon slowly danced into sight, like a firefly escaping from its cave to light the world around it. Finally the elder reached behind him and grabbed the first bottles. They clinked faintly as he popped them open, the hiss of carbonation sounding foreign in the still of the night. He handed one to his sibling, and they tapped the bottles together like old comrades before tipping them to their lips. The bubbles tickled their tongues and they wrinkled their noses at the taste, though neither said anything aloud. The silence of novelty was suddenly broken with the younger's belch, his surprise evident at the aggressive escape of carbonation. They both burst into giggles at their trepid behavior. They began to talk, each swig reducing their fear of being discovered, each bottle making them brash. The elder teased the younger about his tolerance, though his own was not much superior, and the younger teased him back about the girl with the swingy red hair. The elder blushed and brushed aside the comments, though his thoughts turned to her smile, and he wondered what her eyes would look like with the moonlight reflected in them here in the truck bed. The younger’s thoughts were on her little sister, like a secret they shared. The night waned on, and eventually the teenagers were whooping and hollering like they had when they were boys, dashing through the field and laughing like hooligans. They collapsed not far from their truck, curling their hands through the dry stalks of grass. Bottle caps littered the earth around them and the sky spun above their dizzy heads. They each thought briefly of their father, alone at home and probably still deep in work, and they dismissed him as their eyelids grew heavy. They slept, there among the fallen leaves on the still sun-warmed earth, oblivious to the stars swirling above their heads and the whispered lullaby from the wind, bringing with its kisses the promise of the dawn. 

-- 

The elder shivered and pulled his jacket tighter around his shoulders. The chill of the air was cruelly punctuated by slices of wind, paradoxically burning the tips of his ears and nose. The sun was fading into the horizon as if aware that it could offer no solace to break the cold. Off in the distance, lights of all colors twinkled merrily. The air was sharp and sweet, different from that of the city. Though he’d been gone only two years, he already felt like a foreigner. He found himself amazed at the smallness of the town he never thought he’d be homesick for. The silence filled the air like something tangible and alien next to the sounds of the city. The field was blanketed in a thick coat of snow, powdery and soft, broken only where the taxi’s wheels had cut it in two. The lilt of the driver’s eyebrow had been the only betrayal of his thoughts before he drove off, leaving the elder sitting on the fence with his suitcase in the snow. After a time, the silence was muffled by the sound of his old truck, now the younger’s, puffing up the dirt road and pulling alongside him. The elder watched the younger step out and stood up in greeting. The smile fell from his lips as he noticed his brother’s wide eyes and unsteady gait, the alcohol drifting from his breath. For a split, nostalgic second, he was back in time watching the two of them lie drunk in the field, full of laughter and innocence and possibility. Then his thoughts turned to their father, quiet and recluse, and what it had felt like to be dressed in black there in the field on a hot summer’s day. The younger shook his head, his unease apparent, and opened his mouth. He only said her name, the little sister of the girl with the swingy red hair that the elder hadn’t seen in years. All at once the elder knew why he’d been called, why they were meeting here instead of home. A vision of a child with his brother’s eyes flashed before him. He wondered how her sister was doing now, remembered her eyes in the moonlight, and how immediately he’d understood the younger’s draw to her sister. He pulled the younger into his arms, offering calm despite his own panic, rapidly changing his views of the future and soothing his brother with promises and platitudes as the snow gently started to fall. 

-- 

The air smelled of green for the first time that year, sweet with the promise of possibility. Although the earth still seemed asleep with winter, there were tiny hints here and there of the coming change. Viridian pinpricks on the branches of the trees, birdsong in the distance, the fragrance of the air, both nostalgic and new. The ground squished beneath their feet, the only evidence of the last snowfall of the year. The warmth of the sun felt both familiar and foreign, he thought to himself, the tangible sensation of its rays a departure from its feeble shine of weeks past. A boy with red hair pulled at his hand and he laughed at the child’s eagerness, eyes alight with simple joy. The elder shared a smile with the younger like a secret they thought only they knew, and let the boy pull him forward into the field. The younger turned to see his father trailing behind him, kite in hand, eyes to the sky but the same knowing smile tugging at his lips. Like the earth, something had reawakened. His father picked up his pace, clapping his son on the shoulder affectionately. The four figures made their way into the center of the field, where the breeze was strongest and newly fragrant. The child grabbed impatiently at the kite as his grandfather knelt in the dirt to offer words of guidance and encouragement. The elder and the younger stood side by side watching the child with their father. They chatted of bygones and simpler days, of life in the big city and in the small town, of different but connected futures. They felt the peace that comes so easily on the first warm day of spring, the stirring of wind reminiscent of a tender caress. They watched as the child discovered he could be anything and everything, laughed at the characters that were familiar and marveled at the ones that were new. Off in the distance, a train sounded its horn. Shadows scattered from the sun, dancing across the small growing shoots. There was new life pushing up from earth that had been dormant, reaching into the field that had connected a family, brothers beside their father, all encircled around a boy and his kite.