The Last Monsoon

He felt the first drops of the monsoon fall upon his field as though they fell atop his own tired body.

After so many years, it’s only natural that one becomes so tied to their home that it is difficult to separate the material body from that of the mental, spiritual, and emotional. So when the Farmer’s old eyes fluttered open as the first drops quenched the thirsty soil that had become well acquainted with him, he was not at all confused by what caused his sudden awakening. Indeed, he had been expecting it for several days; even the fresh country air had seemed to be holding bated breath in the days prior.

Although he performed his morning rituals with a tried and true measured pace, he knew full well the day would proceed without his usual lack of excitement. Nonetheless, there was no rush; who knows, after all, how long we can hold onto the small, familiar, if not slightly mundane, comforts of the everyday?

The large hands performed the acts tenderly, an innate act of love; first to wash away the uncleanliness from his teeth, his full cheeks and subtly upturned nose, behind the ears. When it had all been cleaned away, he then moved on to drape the old, battered, soft clothes over his head, arms, torso, legs, sliding a well-loved blue wool hat over his unruly, curled hair and, finally, sinking his tired feet into the sturdy green boots that he owed a great deal of his mobility to. Heading downstairs, he ran experienced fingers over the well-loved wooden framework of the house that sighed around him. Much of the green paint had long since bid farewell to the wood surfaces of the banisters, the railings, and had just as long ago been swept off the creaking wooden floors. When caught in his own daydreams, the Farmer could swear the creaks bore a resemblance to whispers, complete with a familiarity that belonged to a lifetime that was no longer his. The sigh he ushered in response had the hint of longing not unusual for his advanced age, but none of the discontent one may expect. 

With his tea and oatmeal made, he sank into the singular chair without dust surrounding his dinner table, careful not to disturb the other chairs around him out of a deep seated respect. The window before him brought the sight of his farm, and the fog that hung so closely, almost intimately, above it, into full view. As the aroma of the tea leaves, picked from his own garden, filled his most immediate senses, he noted nonetheless the lively movement that seemed to dance just beyond what his eyes could see in the white mist. He knew well enough that it was nearly time. With slightly more agility but no less care, he cleaned away his breakfast and heaved his heavy, warm coat over the thick lamb’s wool sweater swaddling his body. As he stepped out of the threshold, with an almost absent mindedness he pressed the index and middle finger on his right hand to his chafed pink lips and quickly brushed them against the top of the dust-covered frame resting above the fireplace. The frame showcased the photo of a much younger man and beautiful woman holding a laughing child, frozen in the time preserved in the ink. Where his fingers swept across the top, the frame had been polished to a shining brass color, a stark contrast to the dulled bronze of the rest.

His boots sunk several inches into the softened, wet mud beneath him as he stepped outside the lopsided, white door frame, creaking on rusted hinges. He took a deep breath, confirming that the land had released the tension he had felt in past days; by contrast, the wind today whipped around him with what can only be characterized as vengeance, causing the rain to meet his skin with a reciprocal wrath. His lips turned down slightly as he became mildly perplexed by the silence that greeted him; they had been late before in years prior, but the increasing frequency with which it had occurred in past years fueled concerns that this may be the year they were absent in whole. Without question, this would be quite the obstacle, particularly for this year of all years.

These anxieties were quickly put to rest, however, as the small sounds of the earth beneath him rose in both their volume and fervor. The hum of the cicadas, the breeze in the trees, and the bleating of the sheep and calls of the chicken in the nearby henhouse grew with exceptional ferocity and intensity. Despite being such a bizarre medley, there was no discordance to the sounds around him; indeed, much like the Farmer himself, the crescendo rose with such a precision and deliberate tempo there was no question the symphony was well orchestrated. As the volume escalated, one could find it entirely feasible to be so overwhelmed that they did not even register the feeling of the ground shaking and coming apart beneath them.

The movement in the distant fog became increasingly animated, the forms in the mist gaining clarity and definition until the figures appeared in their most terrestrial glory. A band of merry and ethereal travelers, they ascended from the soil itself, with their features seeming to emerge from the rich earth, as the silt fell away from forming full bodies and faces. One by one, the figures gained increasing definition; capable, hardy hands swelled out of the ground, muscular legs springing forth with the agility of a timeless youthfulness, the soil that once laid atop them falling away. Wild, dark hair inseparably interwoven with vines and other foliage, fell from their scalps, exuding health and vivacity. As their full forms straightened out, the superhuman nature of these individuals became quickly apparent, as they towered at least two and a half heads over the Farmer. The features of their faces seemed to shift every moment, as though uncertain of what form they should take. Their skin shone in the daylight, regardless of how heavily the overcast skies hung overhead. The shine brought attention to the most subtle hint of a forest green hue in their skin.

As the figure in the front finally formed a mouth, the full feminine lips curved into an elegant, ecstatic smile. Even before any other features could define themselves fully, the lips spoke:

“Good morning, George.”

George returned the smile, his lips, despite being victims of incessant biting, pulled back to reveal an incomplete, but nonetheless equally ecstatic, toothy grin. Despite it being a feature that had caused him to be bashful in his youth, it is in the comfort of those we hold dearest that such artificial concerns seem most trivial and inane. In this comfort, he remained silent; a reserved man by nature, he trusted that his glee was communicated, regardless of his lack of spoken verbiage.

In a steady stream they emerged, heading into George’s home, their footsteps so light they left not even an imprint in the earth beneath them. As they walked by him, George bowed his head slightly so that they each were able to gingerly press their soft lips to his tousled-hair covered forehead. As they made contact with his skin, the warmth of an intimacy that had become foreign to him in recent months returned. When the last of them walked past, George fell into line with them, joining them in his home.

The following hours were spent in tremendous rejoice, George reuniting with the spirits of his land once more. Though he largely lived a modest life–refusing company for the past thirty years, and refusing to leave the land for twenty before that makes one rather reliant on only the resources they can produce alone–he provided his guests with generous quantities of food and drink; even so, as was the case every year, it seemed as though hardly any dent was ever made in his inventory as though it were replenishing itself as quickly as it were being consumed.

The festivities lasted until morning. The boisterous music and laughter and good tidings died away as the first teases of sunlight streamed through the windows in the early hours of the morning until the only two left awake were George sat in a contemplative silence with Ermen, the first of the figures that came forth and greeted him. Wordlessly, they stared into the fields before them, watching the life return to the farm and the moor surrounding it. The rain had stopped several hours before, but the fog that it had brought in remained stubbornly suspended over the land. Despite the silence between them, she, of course, knew the state of his mind.

“Is it really what you want, George?”

George refrained from answering too quickly; he wasn’t foolish enough anymore to act decisively before he had to. He meticulously dissected the question before offering his response, in a warm, but unpracticed croaking voice:

“Yes, it is.”

“Why?”

He stared with an intensity that could have almost been mistaken with a sort of absent blankness into a single point in the field. He knew the land, the Divines knew the sort of intimacy with which he knew the land. When the earth breathed, so did he; when the earth drank, his thirst was quenched. But such a relationship is not so one sided, with the land reflecting George as much as he reflected it. And after so long, George was quickly noticing the crops found it more difficult to flourish, the lambs and the ducks and the chickens had more difficulty filling their bellies, the water wells refilled more slowly. At such an age, George had no time for denial and self-inflicted delusions; he was aging and the land was doing the same with him. It was only a matter of time.

Ermen sighed in understanding, comprehending his thoughts as quickly as they formulated in his mind. 

George rose after a few moments, turning to make his way to one of many sleeping figures, this one in particular passed out on his couch. The tenderness with which he brushed away her tousled hair from her full cheeks and her subtly upturned nose was not lost on Ermen in the slightest. Her lips were barely parted but even so, the gape in her teeth came in and out of view as she lightly snored. He could not believe he could have been complicit in the creation of such beauty.

As though she had been there all along, Ermen was suddenly beside George, her deep green eyes noting the memories playing in his mind as they occurred to him. Lovingly, she took his hand into hers. If not for the somber notes in the air, the scene would have been almost comical; George’s ragged hands almost childlike in appearance compared to the grace and fluidity of her well-proportioned, but exceptionally large, palm. 

“I know she left you sooner than you had intended. Of course, no one has the intention of tragedy.”

“To participate in life is to consent to all of it, even the tragedies.”

“Still, we can hope for more days of fortune before being subjected to the worst.”

“Loving you, my dear, has been a fortune no tragedy could negate, regardless of how much it amplified the pain of losing you too.”

George looked up at the form of his wife and it was only as their eyes met that a thought occurred to her.

“It’s begun, hasn’t it?”

“Only recently. But yes.”

He raised his hand to his head, pulling the hat from his head, springing forward an inseparably interwoven mess of vines and long locks of hair. 

“Oh, George. Welcome home, my love.”

Our merry band of travelers left the old Farmer’s home just as the showers began again, a fog descending upon the fields and the soil and the farm once more. As they entered the mist, they disappeared, one by one. The Farmer, at least as we had met him, was not among them. Indeed, the Farmer was no longer among anything at all. George, however, very much was.

In the days following, the old house, speckled with the green paint and open to the world only through it’s crooked door frame, creaked with considerable demand for attention that could be given by no one. One month went by before the house, the farm, and all that would have told any story of a mortal life, gave up and in one last heave sunk into the earth, returning the wood, the clay, the wool, and all else back to the earth from where it had first been born. It was as though nothing had been there at all and, in that way, all was exactly as it always had been.