What Can Be Born of Snow

            It was another one of the days that he could feel that same irk that loomed over him every so often. The sun turned his farmhouse into a wooden oven. He threw his windows open to dispel the bothersome heat but it only sentenced him to the realization that there was no escape from it. No amount of room temperature tea was able to help lull him into feeling cooled. He had only experienced this sensation for two or so years while tending to the farm. This time of season was important for him to push himself through this feeling or else the turnip crop wouldn’t last him through winter time. Sweat mixed with water spilled over top of his blonde mop of hair. He wondered if there were steam lines emanating from him. That feeling came creeping back though, he knew if he was any less careful with how he conducted his day to day it would overwhelm him. The feeling of this isolation, the memory of promises, so much love that he kept to himself. If he couldn’t drink from the reservoir, he had saved for so long inside himself, he was sure that the isolationist experience would have been too much for him. Nonetheless he had years of holding onto that love, letting it stockpile and save until the moment in which he wasn’t able to open the floodgates, it sat still and stagnant in his breast.

            The newly planted seeds demanded water each day, so each day he would walk the weed ridden path to gather buckets from his personal well no more than three to four miles on the property. He tried exceptionally hard to not look the moniker of a farmer. Always in fear that the appearance of a rugged man would unsettle people minding their own business. Freshly cleaned clothes, ornate pins, and embroidery. He could keep his head held high despite the devilish sun carving red baked spots into his still tanning skin. The well was nearly the only place that he saw others in his weekly routine. A merchant getting water for their horse, another noble looking for directions, housewives with their children that scurry along the path without a care to help their mother descend and ascend the buckets.

Today it was a new face; a girl of his approximate age, no more than twenty-five. She had the petticoat of a more upper-class citizen who belonged in a city rather than farm country, though she heaved at the bucket with excellent skill to boot. Hand over hand she tore the pale from the watery depths, the farmer stood and allowed her to diligently do her work. She either had not seen him or did not expressly desire to ask for aid which he would not force upon her. It was so admirable of her that she kept her stature of sophistication but strained and pined her muscles with purpose.

Purpose, he thought to himself. Trying to remember and forget a time when his own reservoir had such a word incorporated within its ecosystem. Pangs of emotion leapt from his chest he chose to ignore and smother by moving into action rather than ruminating further.

            “Scorching day, isn’t it?” The farmer raised his question hastefully as he could to interrupt himself. “I know I haven’t been here long but I dearly hope it doesn’t get worse than this.” He said, dabbing off his forehead with a pastel pink handkerchief.

            She set the filled buckets down on the dusty dirt and wilted weeds by the side of the well, and tried to station herself to avoid needing to lean against the stone and wood next to her. Her petticoat was already caked in a thin veneer of dust and dirtied at the bottom, where it was obvious by mud stains, this was not her first time to the well today. Regardless of her clothing bearing the mark of the world already, she chose to plant her feet proudly and avoid further muck from tarnishing her attire.

“I would have asked you the same thing,” she spoke, holding out her left hand and giving a courtesy with the right. Her left hand was adorned with a wonderful silver ring laden with a moderately sized gemstone. It wasn’t of a cut or pedigree he was familiar with but it gave him a flutter of the heart to see how much pride she put in the little loop. “We have just recently moved in a few miles southward of here to the old beat-up shanty, my husband is trying his darndest to start a crop this season but that soil has been so unloved for so long that I hazard it would take a flood to get it up and running again.”

            “It’s a beautiful gesture that you still collect these buckets for him despite having that idea.” He chuckled while loading up his own onto the crank system. “Though if you keep working so hard, I am sure something will be made of it one of these years. Sticking it through like that is bound to reap rewards.” He rolled his sleeves up partially before working the bucket down the well and gave her a sanguine smile.

She looked at him perplexed almost as if there was a remote meaning told by the oddly well-dressed man. “Aren’t you the ever optimist, I hope we all can have a little of that when the buckets get heavy.” She smiled a wide and gleaming smile as if the sun itself was coming from her compassion and not the fiery ball in the sky. Before giving a dignified hoist to the buckets and nodding as she walked off.

Somehow the buckets felt heavier even if his chest felt ever so slightly lighter.

            The Springtime continued on and turned to summer. The days, no hotter than the one that met him with the new farmer from the South, crept on. His turnip crop was feeding voraciously on the soil he painstakingly tilled and fumigated often. The plants extended out past his initial planting zone and into areas of his field that were kept unused until this moment. He spent some slower days fixing the creaks and cracks in the frames of his windows or doors. Something always needed doing and it was good for him to keep his hands busy. His breakfasts consisted of sourdough bread bought by a merchant cart that scoured between farmers homes and his dinners were of whatever his snare traps could catch out in the field, with such a bountiful harvest he had jackrabbits and quail stored for many days of fruitful dinners.

            Today was a suspension from his typical routine. The roasted rabbit sat on the platter in front of himself, acquiescing the typical farmhouse dust while it cooled from the brick stove it was pulled out of. It wasn’t a surprise but it occurred to him that he was unable to move. The waters tried this every so often, pulling him down into them, attempting a coup of his emotional raft that was held afloat by romanticizing the cobwebs above his kitchen counter and thinking of how incredible a feeling love is to have.

            He daydreamed with his eyes open, thinking far too hard about how the water felt to wrap around him. Like a lover’s embrace that was out of thanks rather than admiration. No matter what, he was always too buoyant to fully sink. The water could rise up all the way to his neck, even if it’s just his nose poking from the depths he could still breathe labored breaths. He could not drown. It made him wonder what would happen if he did drown. If you load a donkey with too much weight, the donkey is crushed and the cargo remains; if he drowned in his unused reservoir of love, where would it go?

            His head swam, eyes out of focus on the tangible world around him. Almost flushing out the soft knock at the door. A sheepish tapping that had obviously been in consideration for some time. He rose from his armchair and heard his stomach rumble with disappointment over the skipped meal. He ruffled his hair in a way as to hopefully fix something. The door flew open, a little harder than he intended, to reveal the lady from that spring day at the well. She kept her hands at her side though noticeably twiddling with her fingers out of nervous habit. Her eyes darted away from the fields of leafy green heads that emerged out of tilled dirt and furrowed in confusion or concern, immediately forgetting the original purpose for her coming to the farmhouse to begin with.

            “Are you ok? I can’t tell if you just saw a ghost or if you are on some sort of witch’s medication.” Her hand stopped itself shy of reaching forward to read the temperature of his forehead.

            That was what he needed to realize he was not fully snapped out of the slump that consumed his psyche. He let out a chortle before speaking, “I must have just been napping in a strange pose, apologies for the fright this phantom gave you.” He wanted to give his typical smile in return to her concerned expression but he could tell the muscles in his face had not fully come back to him yet from his bout of detachment. “Is there something the matter? Was there a ferocious beast chasing you all this way?” Again, he spoke in a joking manner to attempt to swipe away the attention from his own strangehood.

            Her eyes blinked free of his crooked yet kind expression and focused on the matter that had brought her to the farmer’s front door. “Are the Winters here cruel?” She spoke with a certain modulation as to retain her composure. “Such being, how much crop is normal to get a farmer, and possibly his wife, through a Winter’s season?”

            The farmer took no time considering the meaning behind her words, they were clear and evident to him from the first utterance. He went to thinking of his past few winters and that the turnips he grew, a much smaller size crop than this year, were sufficient for himself. With a nod he spoke affirmably, “I typically get by on a meager crop size with portioning one or one- and one-half meal a day.” His voice trying to stay away from sounding imposing or assuming of any situation that could be implied.

            He stood in the doorway incidentally realizing he was positioned in the most unwelcoming way possible, his posture blocking the view to the interior to his home. She stood in consideration for a moment while he shuffled back and forth on the weight of his feet, a nervous habit from cotillion classes subconscious yet forgotten. He took one more look at her expression that slowly but surely was losing its politeness and furrowing its brow the more imagined days passing through her mind’s eye.

            The farmer spun on his heel retreating like a vole into his den and hurried back into his home before his trepidation of protest could come to fruition. The lady from the well took a half step forward looking through the areas of the turnip farmer’s home. There was far more ornate decoration than she expected upon looking inside. The home itself was larger than most others in the area, but the silk couch and alpaca fur lounge chair nearby what was obviously a newly renovated fireplace was notably imported from some noble family’s estate. There were no crests within eyeshot of the willow doorway. As she caught herself leaning in slightly further, the farmer jolted into the doorway with three bags in his hands. He lofted them from the ground using some heft

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            The farmer counted the quail and rabbits in the bags as well as a few loaves of fresh sourdough he had been practicing baking using a starter mother he purchased from the baker instead of his typical order of readily baked bread. He hoped the aroma was as pleasing to other’s noses as his own while he raised the bags in front of himself. “Have no fear for the next couple days, I trust you two have an icebox, no?”

            The lady from the well took more steps back from the doorway realizing she was crowding the entrance space. Her mind sporadically attempted to think of how many days of food this could serve them with the amount of wild game presented in front of herself, followed by how they would begin to repay the farmer, and what he wanted from them in return. There were no crops to trade for these goods and all money was spent on trying to improve the farm to a workable condition.

            “I have too much excess for my own good, you have twice the mouths to feed than my hovel here please think nothing of this other than food you stumbled upon while walking your daily paths.” The farmer smiled and tried his utmost to give a courtesy bow despite his arms trembling from the weight of the bags he held between them. Truthfully, he knew it was a lot and merely hoped she would not curse him on her way home as she heaved the bags the way there.

            The lady from the well instinctively took the bags from his arms to lessen the load that was encumbering the farmer. “You’re too kind to do this for us, if there is ever a day when we can work your farm to pay you back or give you crops, if that day ever comes, please send a letter we will bring them.” Her stature never slouched, just as it had not before, despite the weight of the bags. Her tenacity was of a prideful stallion who would not show weakness.

            The farmer’s heart was disarranged in the most sudden moment hearing her words, perhaps it was too much too quickly and now had burdened both her body and mind with these gifts; although obviously it was too late to take any burden back now. “No, no, no. I assure you. You owe me nothing for this, I have made do with exceptionally less on my own. It is a load-some to own more than needed for me. You need not appreciate this gift from me but if anyone is to thank, it is that the both of you may appreciate these animals more than I.” He gave an awkwardly crooked smile, “Do not burden your arms any longer than you must, head back and go celebrate with a roast bird of your liking.” His composure finally amended itself and he ran his hand through his hair to ensure it wasn’t misrepresenting his presentation.

            The lady from the well nodded in agreement of his latter most statement, giving a force of will and marching off down the dust covered pathway. The farmer shut the door and sighed exasperated at the interaction. His mind wandered wondering what he had been considering beforehand that led him to the notion that flooding someone else with such weight was a gentle and eloquent way of showing kindness. He slumped back on his rocking chair and placed his hat between himself and his windows that he was too exasperated to shut. The crops could wait another day, he was more exhausted than any amount of farm work could ever do.

            Autumn began on queue with the typical rotation of his crops coming to the days of harvest. The field flourished to the point of requiring weeding work to prevent turnips from overgrowing into nearby areas where they may be an undesirable pest. He had spent the past weeks cleaning out his unused barrels within the cold storage cellar below his estate as well as stacking the newly purchased ones for this season’s harvest. The barrels were of the size for one to hold slightly less than two bushels of turnips so each trip to the fields would take some time. Despite the workload he began on his harvest collecting wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of barrels full of turnips. The ordeal would take him weeks of time to complete with few breaks in between.

            Every trip to the storage space kept him feeling more cramped as the barrels stacked higher and wider along the walls. His body would keep moving even when his exasperated mind wanted to slow to a halt. The barrels-built walls, a castle of dirt scented sustenance. More than once he walled himself in while stacking them. His swimming mind tried as hard as it could to create an island to force his body into rest within. The cold of the room was harsher than the outside but the frozen water in his reservoir allowed for brief moments to sit on icebergs before they too sank down into the fathomless depths and he was left to swim more.

            He jolted awake, looking at his own breath like palls obscuring an already shadowy space. He looked around and tucked his hands into his jacket quickly as they snapped at him with the threat of frostbite. It was one of the first moments his legs and back had caught up to him in order to telegraph the message that they were in desperate need of a warm bath and weeks of rest. The barrels obviously played a sick game on him with how comfortable they had felt when he sat down originally, compared to the cramps in his neck that using them as a pillow provided. The more connected he allowed himself to become to his body the more sore spots, splinters, and bruises he could feel that had been pounding to be paid attention to sooner. He threw his arms from his jacket and prised himself from the ground with as many barrels as he could use as handholds. His work was finished finally and thus his body gave in to every fiber of his being that was waiting for that upcoming moment. The stone ramp ascending from the cold storage was a mountain that a soldier would have to climb as a training regimen and the yards away his farmhouse could have been a triathlon. He froze solid once more when he looked and saw a figure waiting at his front door knocking to a host who was not there to accommodate them. He tried to cleanse his attire of the muck and grime but it was baked in from hours of work and no amount of patting down would remove the stains. He attempted to straighten his back to no avail as he approached on his hasteful yet crippled legs giving a hoarse greeting to the figure at the creaky door.

            “Pardon me! I was attending to my cold storage, is something the matter?” He conceded to the expression of welcoming mixed with perturbation at his posture and wellbeing. The lady from the well was so bundled in scarves, a thick sweater, and at least two jackets he didn’t recognize her until she turned and placed her hands on her sides like a hero coming back from war. It was a heartwarming sight, though he nearly chuckled at the notion and multiple entendre of that term. She raised her hand to wave and quickly conceded the hand into one of her many pockets to keep it safe from the harsh outside air.

            Her voice came from behind a muffled layer of scarves interwoven on top of each other that she had no intention of removing for clarity of speech, “My husband and I wanted to thank you for everything you did for us, we truly appreciated everything and appreciate you.” She held out a pastel pink scarf the same color as his handkerchief with so much pride it would shame a pack of lions standing in opposition. “My husband is quite the man of talents when it comes to knitting and sewing on account of my disdain for the cold. So, we thought you might appreciate something of your own aesthetic.”

            The farmer held out his callused hand and watched his aching and stony fingers close slowly like a carnivorous plant. It was hard to understand the softness of the fabric through touch, as his ability to feel was heavily dampened by the cold and strain he had put on them, but he knew from the plushness of the fabric it was alpaca fur. A feeling so foreign to almost anyone else that it would have been an ordeal to acquire the textile. He looked back at her half-covered face knowing at first glance all her scarves were of common cotton and wool instead. His face tingled with pins as blood reentered his cheeks looking down at the gift to him. “This is perfect, the knitting is as if he had worked with this material for hundreds of years.” His eyes stung with fresh moisture and he threw the scarf around his neck in no fanciful manner. His voice came from its own muffled chamber as well now, “You truly could not have given me anything better in the entirety of the world.”

            “Ha! Now it sounds like we speak the same dialect.” She snorted a laugh into the cloth. “Mruphrph Rmmhmphrm.” She muffled her words down deeper into the abyss that kept her warm.

            “Phrrmher hmrrmnphm.” The farmer returned in kind, his diaphragm convulsing through all of its pain to grant him laughter at the silliness of it all.

            They spoke their words of gibberish for another few run-on sentences, the lady from the well-practiced the tones of her words within their language of scarves pretending to be angry and surprised at the things he said. He murmured in a gossiping tone as if they were a part of a cohort that tells secrets behind the head of their household. These secrets would be well kept as he didn’t even know the things he was speaking, though she sold her performance so well it could have been believed there was meaning behind every scrumph.

            He finally lowered his scarf and gave her a farewell nod along with the most charming smile that he had given in months. “I truly appreciate this more than you could know, thank you both for your incredible kindness.”

            “Mrhrumph Mrfrmrh.” She said with a smile in her eyes and trotted off as the world’s most comfortable general in an army would.

            The farmer withdrew into the door of his home that was being warmed by the fireplace. He thanked himself for drawing a bath before his work today. The pipes working through the floor and to the tub warming the water was the second greatest blessing he could have been given today. He cast his clothing off to the side of the bathroom and folded his scarf onto an end table outside the door. He descended into the waters feeling every part of his body slowly thaw. The iceberg he was resting on was melting away into water but he could still stay afloat. His reservoir was infinitely deeper than he had felt it before but it did not seek to let him drown. The water spilled over the sides of the dam. Though he never knew there was an edge or even dam for it to do so.

            His eyes no longer stung but instead filled with the blur of the waters overflowing. His nostrils sniffled with runny clear mucus. He wondered if he had gotten some sort of flu from sleeping in the cold storage cellar but the sniffles would not stop or slow. He finally realized his hands could feel again as they pressed against his face, touching his marble cold cheeks like a statue that had been standing atop a fountain and wiping away smears of watery sap from his nostrils. The more ice melted from his reservoir the more unused, unrequited, unwanted love came pouring from his contorted face. The farmer wept, and he mewled through his bathing, and he lamented into the night. Giving his reservoir fonts of expression, drainage from years of stagnation and unuse.

            He woke to the snow, the intricate particles making soft whispers against his home. Winter came not a day late. He could stand, he could walk. The waters of his reservoir had lowered. The water he held to that was supposed to give life to just one other: was shared, wasted on the floor, and shed. Though despite every fear he had felt for years, it made it easier to swim. He opened a window’s wooden panels and saw the thick blanket of clean white coat his field. Gently cascading from the sky, dampening the noise of everything around to a muted landscape.

            He donned his thickest coat and gloves, not forgetting to put on his most favorite article of clothing around his neck. His boots threatened him with slipping as he emerged from the front door, but he did not slow down as he collected his wheelbarrow and ran it to the cold storage. The farmer gathered up as many barrels as he could onto the wheelbarrow and made his first of many coming trips out to the neighboring farms. His boots crushed down the snow that was never stingy to aid when he was building his own farm.