The Farm by Night

Flash Fiction

It was in the foyer where you could hear the hum of the freeway and the occasional rattle of the train. It was an old brick house - he liked to sit in the floral overstuffed chair that was the favorite of his grandmother: he said he could smell in the cushioning the pumpkin, and rhubarb, and pecan, and mincemeat pies for Thanksgiving.

By the day he watched out over the fields once plentiful with corn and vines and willow trees out into the apple trees lain with Northern Spies when one drank rather than ate one’s apples. The deer and turkeys now ambled and partook before returning to the wood over the stream.

He and his wife had bought this house from the people who his mother had sold it to. His daughter was out in the City and her children came up regularly to visit. One could not see the house from google because he checked. He email through the microphone though hardly anyone answered.

But here were the ghosts: one of the uncles who made ballet and quipped remarks about Synchrony in C, a brother who told about the latest national forest fire, grandfather’s latest experiment with x-rays. He communed with the albums on the mahogany table and could pick out by name all of the dead ones.

He said he would be out there soon under the pine trees where his wife and grandmother were laid to rest. He occasionally talked with his recently dead spouse over whether to put more currants and gooseberries along the south hedge. But he would be there soon, cane in hand, he promised.

No one else sees them, of course.