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By V.E. Silber

Wheat. So much wheat. Expanding in every direction as far as the eye can see. Wheat. Stretching out up onto the horizon, its long emerald ears climbing onto the otherwise perfectly ruled line of the cerulean sky. Not a single haze of white drift past overhead. A flaming white diamond beat down over the cerulean and over the emerald and over my clumsy, weatherworn Stetson, making the emerald stretch higher to the cerulean and the cerulean haze into a shimmering sliver-powder blue, blurring the line which separated the never ending wheat fields from the horizon. Heat. Indeed. What heat. My body of hay burns beneath the tank top and thick wool sweater, not to mention the retched leather pants. Shade. What I would give for shade. Or water. Yes. A lovely, cool, refreshing drink of fresh mountain water. Clear water. Water clear as liquid glass, with my sculpted flower-sack face reflected in the cool, tranquil, frosted glass, and as it would slide down my throat, quenching the sun-dried and burning tissue of the porous material which made up my throat. How sweet it would taste. Like dissolved sugar. Better even. The taste of glass, too sweet to be sugar, too fragrant to be water. Just the right flavour. Ah. The taste of liquid glass. As it would hit my stomach, cool and deliciously gently, just as deliciously tedious, teasing me for more, so I would drink myself silly before it’s glorious chill managed to refresh me. And oh how refreshing then it would be. Water. Fresh mountain water. No, better yet. I just thought of it. Right now. Rain. Ah. Rain. Beautiful rain. Large, thick, lavish rain drops. Cooling me from the outside in. Drenching my clothes, curing the ailments on my porous bean-sack skin brought on by the harsh, careless, merciless, cruel, yet indifferent, sun. Yes. Rain. I would tilt my head back, letting my Stetson slide back on my back, holding fast to my neck by its leather cord. I would open my mouth wide and squeeze my eyes shut tight, letting the drops fall large, heavy and wet into my parched mouth. My dried tongue, the raspy roof of my mouth. The taste would feel at first sweet, then bitter as it heated with the raised temperature of my mouth and body. I would close my mouth as I swallow, letting the delicate, silky drops caress my lips and sunburnt face, my sore cheeks, and my closed lids. Yes. Rain. How lovely rain would be.

Have you ever noticed how sensual water can be? The caresses, silkiness, gentle, delicate, soothing, appeasing, satisfying, more than satisfying. Having been so long in a wheat field, sun coming down harder than rain, one tends to develop a relationship with water. But never you mind that any more now. Heat. This heat. This tremendous heat which surrounds me. That is my predicament, at least, the predicament of the day. Heat. Sun, burns, and blaring heat. Oh god, I think I’ve gone blind because of this heat. Perspiring. I’m perspiring. That’s not good. I’ll loose essential minerals of my system. I’ll become dehydrated and I’ll die. Die… Death. I don’t want to die. But what’s so wonderful about a wheat field that I want to stay for all eternity, or at least until the farmers take me down and replace me with, most likely, some kind of computer system designed to shoot harmless darts at passing crows? I don’t really know. I just don’t want to face death. Death. To die. I met death once. He was coming to take the first farmer. Death was nice enough, but the sight of him taking a being back down into the infernos of the underground with him was terrifying, not to mention traumatizing. Death. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to have to face death again. The heat. Dear god, not the heat again. I just felt a wave of it. I hate those waves that one feels when over the extreme of merely hot. You can feel your body trying to rid itself of the excess heat in long waves. I’m perspiring more. I wish I wasn’t here. I wish I had shade. Yes. Shade. Cool shade. Tranquil shade. Beneath the ever dormant beech by the farmer’s house, with the tire swing hanging from one of it’s many high, thick arms. Those leafs, on those thick arms. Large, thick, vein chiselled jade leaves, filtering the harsh rays from above them into green shafts of musty, fresh air. Humid, sensual against what would be my skin. A light, green taste would appear in the depths of my mouth, and I would find myself in a watery shade. Light surrounding my bubble of refreshment and darkness. I would be protected and fulfilled, like the sensual caresses of the fresh mountain water down my throat, darkness would lick at my skin, and a light breeze would curve about the cavities of my body and acquiesce to my every desire. Shade. Indeed. Lovely, wholesome, comforting shade. Beneath the beech. In front of the farmer’s home.

Why should I be out in the fields today any way? In this immense heat. In this pristine heat. Immaculate heat. Not a single creature, dead or alive, could barely even crawl out into these fields, even if they were starving to the brink of death, for they would surely die of thirst before being able to mollify their hunger. My services are not required here. Not today. Not now. Not in this heat. This steadily pacifying heat. The blur just above the line of the horizon is beginning to fade, and I can just about see past it onwards to the never-ending, ever expanding fields of wheat. My nose feels nonexistent, for it is too dry to smell. My mouth is too dry to swallow. My skin too dry to move a single limb, for fear of the patches of skin falling off completely. And before me, the blur of heat lessens even more. The heat is lessening. Rejoice! For the love of God, rejoice! A breeze is beginning to stir the downward tilted hem of my Stetson, cooling the screaming skin of my face. I tilt my head slightly upward to gaze up at the darkening cerulean. Clouds, forming rain clouds. Large and thick and black. Black water within them. Stormy clouds. Angry clouds. My salvation. And before me, behind me, to my left, and to my right, never ending fields of wheat. Wheat. Never ending wheat. Healthy, strong wheat. Fragrant wheat. Wheat every day, wheat for my life. Wheat. Ears of wheat. Stalks of wheat. Animals which long for wheat. Crows over head searching for fresh wheat. Wheat. Always searching for wheat. What everyone is searching for in their lives, the single meaning of their pitiful, meaningless, empty, detached little lives: Wheat. Endless fields of wheat. In every direction. Wheat… Wheat…So much wheat. Wheat…

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