Clover

There is a young man who sits in the clover field as the sun sets in January. They say that he has no place to be. They say he has nothing to do but think, and that's where his goes. Not many know why, but they know what he has faced. They say that he will come back to the field every day until he is old and gray, they say he looks like his father, that they wonder where his sister is, that they miss his mother terribly. Sometimes, if they are far enough away from the boy, out of earshot by more than ten feet, and without looking at him, they will say that he is out of luck.

He stares out at the field of green with a glint in his eye that was almost too hard to notice. There's something about the field. His thumb rubs at the side of his finger, so hard that the skin breaks and rolls right off into the grass.

He doesn't notice it.

If he did notice, he would swear at himself, once, two times, and then stare at the making of his bad habit. It wasn't clear to him when the habit began, it was just always there, a part of every memory he had.

It is a field of clovers, and it makes him want to cry.

Years ago, the kind of long ago that blurs memories and changes them, he was in the field, looking for something. There were others there too, people he knew and cared about deeply. A girl, younger than him, who looked like him and had his same sad eyes. There was a man too, he was older, with deep lines in his skin and a wise look about him. The man carried a locket in his hand, it was once a shining gold, but time had made it dull and dark.

The boy bites at his chapped lip and pulls the necklace out of his pocket. It is broken at the tip, chipped at the clasp, and scratched on nearly every surface. He remembers a phrase that used to be carved into the circle that hung around his father's neck, but it isn't there anymore, he can't remember what it said. Instead, he contributes to the wear and rubs the smooth metal some more. He fumbles with the broken clasp, but gets it open, to reveal a single clover, a four leaf clover, to be exact, sitting in front of a miniscule picture of his mother.

She was smiling in the picture, her long brown hair was blowing in the breeze, and as he looked at it, a small gust of wind blew his own hair over his eyes.

He looked back up at the field and began to cry, not for anything in particular, not for the death of the woman in the locket, not for him losing his job, not for his father kicking him out of his childhood home, not for hearing that his younger sister had cancer, not for any of that, no, he cried for the field, the field that was constantly foraged by hundreds of unlucky people, hoping to pluck a piece of plant from the ground, hoping, hoping to steal nature's own luck, to harvest and exploit it. Like his father did, the clover in the locket.

He had always been confused by his father's conflicting words and actions.

"Son, the field won't bring you luck, nothing will except for you. You have to make you're own luck, kiddo. It's up to you."

It was that phrase that rang in his head every morning and night, through every hardship that he endured, and yet, he was still drawn to this place, this place that promised to make you the luckiest person alive. And even with that constant reminder that it was up to him, he came back. And so did his father.

The boy remembers something else. The day he and his father were in the woods, hunting. The rising sun turned the cool mist a warm, stunning gold, and their footfalls crunched dry leaves with every step. It was then that he asked him why he took the clover, instead of leaving it for someone who wanted it, and he answered, "I do want the clover, son, just not for the same reason as everyone else. They want it because of the promise that it makes, I want it because of the tradition. I don't want to take from it, I just want to take it, ya know?"

He didn't know. And he wouldn't know for quite some time, until he wound up at the field a few years later, clutching that locket for dear life and begging it for luck. But he knew it wouldn't work. It was under the clover that his mother succumbed to her injuries after that car wreck. It was under the clover that his boss went bankrupt and sold his business, costing his employees their jobs. It was under the clover that his father looked his desperate son in the eye and told him that he couldn't stand him, and that he needed to leave. It was under the clover that his beloved sister fainted at a birthday party and a tumor was found in her brain. It was under the clover that he fell from the top of the world to rock bottom.

He takes a shaking breath and opens the locket once more, takes out the shriveling clover and grimaces at how fragile it really it. He lays it down by his side and scours the area for another clover. His eyes catch sight of one, and his plucks it from the ground. It is perfect, bright green, a short stem, and three, full leaves. He gingerly places it over the smiling picture of his mother, closes the locket carefully, and then lays down in the field, and allows his eyes to close.

When his eyes open again, which they surely will, the boy will no longer feel the burden of luck. It will be lost among the three-leaved clovers, just a meaningless dead plant, laying tepidly amongst a group so invisible, so careless, so free. Three-leaved clovers don't feel pressure, three-leaved clovers aren't sought out, they aren't wanted, they mean nothing. They don't need anyone or anything, they aren't needed.

The boy is a three-leaved clover now. He is free.