12-06-2009, 03:32 PM
[23 stalk]
In the Kansas farmlands, there had been a very peculiar drought that lasted for many years. It would rain each year, though just short of being enough water to get the crops through. Right before their peak, everything would dry up and a season's work would amount to nothing.
The old farmer had learned of this and tried to deal with it by growing things like tomatoes and peppers in very small quantities. They would grow up very fast, and those, he found, he was able to salvage, despite the drought. But it wasn't enough to earn a living. He had sold one of his cows and all of his horses on account of not being able to feed them all. Part of his land now belonged to someone he barely knew. He owned barely a thing, and his life was now boring and lonely after his wife's death last winter. For the past few years, everything was slowly coming to a halt.
Each night, the farmer would sit in his rocking chair, listening to the silence of the outdoors. Not many bugs or crickets were around, they had no plants to feed on. His field were reduced to little more than dried plants and parched dirt.
His anguish would reach a point to where he would forget about life as it was before this dreadful drought. He was only aware of the despair he now had, that hung over his head from day to day. One night, the old man sat in his rocking chair on his porch under the light of a full moon. He bent over, holding his head in his wrinkled, calloused hands. Tears came to his eyes, leaving wet trails on his weathered face that sunk into the wrinkles around his eyes. Oh, how he wished for rain! He didn't want to leave this world like this! Not a lonely, worthless old man with nothing to give anymore, with nothing to show...
Then, as he raised his head, he was aware of a new presence before him. He looked up to see a boy, no more than nineteen years of age standing on his porch. His eyes gleamed brightly in the moonlight. It almost seemed that he was smiling.
"Who... who are you boy?" Asked the man. "I have nothing to give... all of my money is gone, all of it. None of my possessions are of any use." The young man didn't say anything, simply reached over to take the small flowerpot off the ledge of the porch railing. There was nothing in it but soil and dead seeds underneath. He knelt before the old man and waved a hand over the pot as he held it. The boy stared intently into it, and the farmer travested, after a moment.
In the silver pale moonlight, the farmer thought he saw the dirt shift a little bit, and out of it, came one green, tiny stalk.
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