The Slate Roof

The thud of his heel hit the bark, walnuts rained on the reddened tiles skipping taught across the oven earth. He looked on as the crop scattered outward, the sound pricking his skin into motion. Picking up two of the fallen fruits, he cupped them in a single palm and snapped them hard with his hands, one to the other.

It was dusk, a time of deepening blue, of breathing the humid fragrance of newly hown fields, of voices ebbing in and out of the silence. He listened to the mellow nonsense that meant more than thought and then, gathering up the walnuts into his willow basket, he turned towards the open door. As the farmer walked, the warm glow of fire rushed through, then around him, the door closed, evening spread as light billowed outward from tiny cracks in the slate roof.

Once, time upon time he thought to himself, along the bridleway, over the bridge, across the meadow. After many years of struggle his thoughts had led to one conclusion and from that point the farmer thought no more and came only to feel.