Fields ripe for harvest, tall barley swaying in the morning breeze, their yellow brightened by the spring sun--all this and nothing more surrounded the red brick farmhouse, save the chicken coop and one strip of grey on the yellow horizon, a road upon which Jenna hadn't seen a car since she was six years old.

She felt her grandfather's gentle hand pet her head, then rest upon her shoulder.

"Beyond yonder, hmm?"  A little laugh, a squeeze of her shoulder.  "Nothing much out there these days, girl."

A long silence.  The warm breeze ruffled her shirt, then another gentle squeeze.

"You always like to watch though, don't you Jenna?"

"I missed the barley truck last time."

Another squeeze.  "It still won't come for a good while, Jenna.  Maybe a couple weeks."

"Tell me the story again."

He laughed softly.  "Say please?"

His eyes twinkled at her with humour.  "Please," she said, and gazed yonder again, watched the road closely.

Grandpa took a long, slow breath.  "When I was a lad, your age and even far after, when I was a grown-up still before I was anybody's Grandpa, things were very different along that road."

"Tell me about the colours!  ...Please."

"You know how you love that truck?  The one that comes once every time this here Grandpa reaps the grain?"

"It's white and black and has a man!"

"Well, when I was younger, every morning and every evening the road would fill with cars, and off in the distance there, the morning sun burning down on them, they'd sparkle brighter than stars."

"Like the stuff in Grandma's old jewellery box."

A pause.  His hand grew stiff, but when she looked up he was smiling, and he rubbed her neck, and she gazed out over the yellow fields at the road again.  "Just like Grandma's jewellery.  Like a giant necklace laid flat upon those hills, a necklace of a hundred colours stretching off, red and blue and you name it, stretching, sparkling into the distance each way."

"Every colour in the house?"

Grandpa laughed.  "I can only hope we've got them all."

"Any of them yellow?"

He still laughed.  "Couldn't see the yellow ones for the grain, child!"

#

Their lives were simple.  Jenna helped feed the chickens, watched them cluck and teeter side to side as they trotted about their coop.  She built snow men during winter, chased butterflies in the summer, watched Grandpa pull water from the well, cook, wipe the picture frames, reap the fields in spring and autumn--barley and wheat, both yellow.  During summer and winter Grandpa would mostly sit in his leather chair, a yellow-paged book in one strong, gentle hand while the other twirled his long grey beard.  Often he'd hold an old photograph.  He'd wander from room to room, polish the pictures every day.  He'd stand before them, inspecting them, all those people whom Jenna had never met or couldn't remember.  She'd ask about them.  Uncles and aunts and old friends of Grandpa's.  Her mother; her father; Grandma.  He'd tell stories.  He was full of more stories than all the bookshelves in the house, but when he spoke about the people in the pictures he'd always go and read again, and when he read his grown-up books, even though he wouldn't say, Jenna could tell he wanted to be left alone.  If she asked him a question, his eyes seemed vacant when he smiled, distracted, his voice quiet, monotone. 

Now it was spring, and the truck would come any day. 

Squinting for the sun, Jenna watched the road, the swaying barley, heard the soft whispers of Grandpa's scythe in the all embracing silence. 

Near silence.  There came a slight rush of wind.  Over the horizon Jenna could see no coming storm.  She moved away from the house, looked in all directions then back to see Grandpa's gently swishing scythe gleaming by sunlight.

Another gleam, distant, and Jenna felt her heart inflate.

The sparkle grew, glided like a fairy.

"It's along the road!" she cried, hesitated only a moment--rushing through the grain she'd see nothing, and if it was gone upon reaching the road, she'd see nothing.  Jenna jumped up and down, body having nothing of her caution.  The sparkling red jewel kept gliding down the dull grey, the lonely typical grey of each day of Jenna's life, and Jenna rushed into the yellow grain.  She saw nothing but the stalks she bashed aside, felt nothing but brushing on her arms, awareness of her feet so she wouldn't get lost.

Her racing seemed to last forever.  Her worries grew stronger, deeper.  Small cries escaped alongside panicked breaths.  There was a sound like Grandpa's axe slamming against wood.  Jenna caught a glimpse of openness and light through the barley stalks and sprinted, soon burst into the roadside to see a vast red gem, gleaming white stars from a surface polished as a fresh dinner plate.  It glided forward, red as a ladybug with black tires and silver front just like Grandpa's polished scythe.  Jenna needed to pant but couldn't breathe.  Her face grew hot.  Her head felt like someone gripped it by the temples.  The gliding jewel slid into the roadside to lift dry dirt from its six month old resting place to become yellow smoke.  It roared into the six month old silence, spilled black smoke--black as tar--into the sky that had only seen blue or grey or white since the last harvest.

She hadn't missed the truck this year!  The thought blazed inside her.  Grandpa would miss it!  She had to call for Grandpa!  She took two quick breaths, fell to her knees, gasping, tried to shout but all that came was more panting.  She tried to look up, to watch the jewel and the smoke and the front end made of scythes.

She could hear only the roar, sputtering now like Grandpa when he coughed.  A door slammed.  A woman's voice:  "Fourteen days!?  How can you expect me to wait fourteen days!?"

Jenna managed to look up, saw the woman speaking into another glittering thing, small as a wallet, black and silver pressed against her ear.  This woman's hair was smooth gold like the barley under sunlight and morning mist.  She wore a coat, red just like her vehicle, had trousers black as night, wore jewellery just like from Grandma's box.

Jenna managed, panting, "You're... the... truck.  You were bigger... last time."

#

"I can keep track of the days," Jenna said. 

Grandpa smiled.  "I'm sure you can."

"I have a calendar!  The truck driver brings me a new one every autumn!"

Alice smiled, too, tucked some smooth barley hair behind her ear.  "I really hate to impose..."

"It couldn't be less trouble," Grandpa said.  "We get one visitor twice per year and he only helps roll the grain and take it away."  Grandpa laughed.  "You're quite welcome to fill the silence."

Alice sipped from her cup.  "So is this water really from a well?"

Grandpa chuckled.  "It's filtered."

"I helped!" Jenna said.

Alice swallowed, said to Jenna, "You've done a fine job."  She smiled at Grandpa, then again at Jenna.  "How old are you, dear?"

"Seven!"

Alice laughed, said to Grandpa.  "So you were lying about the silence around here.  My sister with her boys....  You couldn't read a book to save your life."

"This one chooses her moments well," Grandpa said with a smile.  Then he grinned.  "Considering."

Jenna placed both hands upon the table.  "Can you tell me about where you... drove from... please?"

"A city down the road.  East of here."

Jenna's brow furled.  She watched her knees and began rocking her chair.

"Don't do that, Jenna," Grandpa said, and she stopped.  Grandpa looked at Alice.  "Jenna has never seen a city, Ms Nelson.  I'm certain she doesn't even remember seeing a car."

"That's not true!" Jenna said.  "I saw the truck one year ago!  Every time before that, too!"

They laughed.  Grandpa said, "A truck is different from a car."

Jenna watched her knees again, remembered not to rock her chair.  "So you aren't here to take the grain?"

"I think my trunk would explode!"

The grown-ups laughed, eyes bright on each other's.  Jenna had heard Grandpa laugh a thousand times, but only twice per year with another grown-up, and never with a woman.  It was a different sort of laugh--more gentle, somehow more open.  He placed his warm hand gently on Jenna's, which still rested on the table.

A silence followed.  Jenna tried, "I can count them....  How will you go away in fourteen days?"

#

On that first day, Alice used that black and silver contraption, spoke into it, asked if there was "electricity" to charge the battery.  There was none, and she seemed concerned, but that faded as they walked to the car to get her suitcases.  Under the hot afternoon sun they talked all about cities.  Alice had been travelling from a place called "Richmond" to a place called "Lynchburg", and both had tall buildings, some made of glass that sparkled like Grandma's diamond ring.  They had big green trees and cars everyday and so many people you could hardly go for a walk without bumping into a dozen folks you'd never even met.  They had more streets than the yellow horizon had hills, and you couldn't see a field of grain anywhere, even on the far horizon when you stood way up high in the tallest buildings.  Alice even said, "You know, I don't think I've ever seen a wheat field.  They're really quite beautiful."

"It's nice to hear someone say that," Grandpa said.

Jenna added, proud to know, "It's barley in the spring!"

Jenna couldn't imagine never knowing a farm, instead knowing big crowded streets with buildings like the mountains she'd only seen in Grandpa's photographs.  It was like Alice had come all the way from a star.  "It isn't like it used to be," she said.  "All those buildings were once packed, too."

"And now everyone works outside?" Jenna asked.

Alice smiled.

Grandpa said, "Used to have more cars along the road; more business.  I haven't seen a city in what feels like forever."  Grandpa looked over the fields.  Jenna thought it strange since the car was right there to be watched.  He could see the fields any time all year around.  "To us this is just the world."

#

On the third day, Alice stood in the doorway, gazing out into the fields.  Jenna came beside her, watched the glitter from the lonely car out on the road.

"Are you looking at your car?" she said.  Alice just smiled.  "Maybe your 'sell' phone?"

Alice chuckled, then spoke softly, "I still can't believe how quiet a scythe is."

"Grandpa does that all day every day before the truck comes.  That's how I know.  That and my calendar," she added proudly.

"Do you see snow in the winter?"

"And it's really cold.  Can we please see the car up close now?"

"Let's ask Robert in the afternoon.  Let's ask your Grandpa, I mean."  She moved to the kitchen.  Jenna kept watching for a time, then followed.  Alice opened a can of tuna, boiled some pasta over the fire.  "I'm still amazed at how clean this is," she said.

It was just water, Jenna thought.  "So what's for lunch?"

"Doesn't Robert make pasta?"

"We always have tuna sandwiches."

Alice laughed.  "You'll like it.  Don't worry.  Why don't you run and tell Robert lunch will ready in twenty minutes.  You can look at the car until then."

Jenna ran to Grandpa, grinned and told him, ran to the car and stared, walked all around it, touched the metal, fascinated by its heat.  She touched the tires, smelled them up close.  Alice had taught her how to open the bonnet, and the creak was music, or like a crying bird, as she revealed the dark insides.  She inspected every pipe, every box, and then with a panicked breath replaced the bonnet and ran home. 

She could hear them at the table, talking and laughing.  She sneaked into Grandpa's bedroom and checked the time.  She'd been forty minutes.

"I'm sorry!" she said, bursting into the dining area and leaping into the empty seat, hands still filthy.

They laughed harder.

#

On the eighth day, Alice watched from the doorway again.  Grandpa swung the scythe in graceful, steady motion.  He'd trimmed his beard, so you could see the perspiration on his cheeks.  Jenna normally watched him all day long during the harvest, except when she cooked or cleaned up, but the car still glittered, the sun still blazed on its ruby outsides.  The road and fields just stretched off into vast distance like every year.  She could watch Grandpa reap the wheat next autumn.

"He's such a peaceful man," Alice said.  "It's a wonder he's such a good talker."

"We talk all the time," Jenna said.  Already Alice felt almost like family.  "He tells me jokes and reads me stories in the day and at bedtime.  All he makes me do is say 'please'."

Alice laughed, kept watching, touched one hand to her cheek.  "But," she said, as if speaking to herself, "he hasn't had anyone visit for so long.  It's a wonder he's not shy."

Jenna tore her gaze from the car, watched Alice, confused.  "The truck driver comes twice a year."

Alice placed a hand on Jenna's back, just like Grandpa, only her hand was soft and warm.  Grandpa's always gave an impression of strength behind the gentleness, but Alice's seemed tender as Jenna's own.  She couldn't remember such a hand, and it brought a rush of feelings.  She imagined Mom and Grandma and all the women of the family, though she'd never even met a woman in person.  It made her imagine all their faces, think of all the photographs that covered the farmhouse walls.  All this rushed into her from the warm hand, and she couldn't understand why.

Alice said, "It's not the same, darling."

#

The eleventh day.  Jenna inspected the car every day, almost all day. 

She'd run home for lunch or water, find Alice cooking, or combing her barley coloured hair, washing her face or putting stuff on that hid her wrinkles, even though she already had far less than Grandpa.

Jenna no longer had to wipe the tabletop or sweep the hardwood floor.  Alice did all of that, letting Jenna just watch the car gleam from the doorway, run to it, feel the polished ruby metal hot under yellow sunlight, feel the seats of soft leather just like Grandpa's reading chair.  She'd open the bonnet, look inside, feel the pipes, then run home with blackened, filthy hands.  It took practise to get home before mealtimes, and whichever grown-up saw her first would make her wash before going anywhere near the table.

She heard them laughing inside as she rubbed soap and poured water all over her hands.

They laughed and talked all through their meals, about grown-up things, then they'd turn as one to Jenna and make their conversation into a story so she could understand.

They talked when Jenna was in bed, and she fell asleep listening at it grew quieter and they laughed softly.  When Jenna went to the bathroom she often saw them holding hands, just like in some old photographs with Grandma.

#

The fourteenth day.

Jenna stood alone in the doorway, watching the road, not sure if she wanted to go and see the car or stay in the house with Alice.  Grandpa was still reaping the last of the fields.  Occasionally he'd stack the barley ready for the driver, who would help roll the stacks and lift them onto the truck.  And then the truck would tow Alice's car, drive Alice away to some town nearer Lynchburg where she could find help more easily.  Alice had explained a "cellular", or "cell" phone to Jenna the day before, said she'd been surprised they couldn't get a "wireless network" in the farmhouse.  Grandpa said that perhaps they could, but he'd never tried.  Without a "phone" Jenna could never talk with Alice again.

The scythe stopped whispering.  Grandpa began stacking the barley.  The world became quiet save for the occasional chicken's cluck, the regular rustle of Grandpa throwing barley.  The house was quiet as the fields.

Jenna found Alice in Grandpa's reading chair, gazing over the photograph he kept there, the one with all the family together before the front doorsteps, the one from when the red brick wasn't marked and the house looked all new, everyone young, all the people who Jenna had never met or just couldn't remember smiled, hands rested on each other's shoulders and backs, just like Grandpa always did.

Grandpa was in the middle, seeming taller than he usually did, proud smile lighting his only slightly wrinkled cheeks and brow.  Everyone looked happy, and yet whenever Grandpa watched this picture, his smile was only slight, his eyes holding a strange mixture of emotion, as if he were both happy and sad.

Alice's expression was the same.

"Do you like the picture?"

"It's very fine indeed," Alice breathed.

"That's the best one, I think."  Alice watched her, eyes and smile holding that same strange mixture as Grandpa's.  "Are you sad because you're going, but happy because you're going home?"

She sighed and laughed at once.  Her smile deepened while her eyes grew more sullen.  "Something like that."

The whole day passed this way.  Finally Grandpa returned.  Alice placed the photograph back onto the table and hurried to the kitchen.  They cooked tuna pasta together.  Jenna wasn't hungry.  Grandpa and Alice spoke little.  They ate in near silence until the truck's horn blasted and everyone jumped.

"Gosh," Alice said.  "It's like a fog horn!"

"A what?" Jenna said.

Again, Grandpa gave the sad smile.  "I'll tell you another time."

Grandpa and Alice shared eye contact for a long moment, then Grandpa turned, slower than usual, and walked back into the fields to see Bob, the truck driver.  Alice cleaned the kitchen while Jenna watched the men do their work.  Grandpa was taller than Bob, but only when he didn't slouch.  They worked fast, pausing to wipe their brows with white cloths, Grandpa pausing to rub his spine with the back of his hand, stretching up and gazing towards the hot sun.  Soon Alice joined Jenna in the doorway, and they watched together, Alice's soft hand rubbed Jenna's back, then became still.  Soon the white truck, puffing grey smoke into the air, was full of yellow barley.  The fields still moved on, yellow forever.  The wind still blew gentle and cool, though no barley swayed.

Jenna watched the car, aware this might be her final chance to see this ruby wonder, but she looked up frequently to see Alice's face.  Alice seemed sad so, even as Jenna heard the rattle of the men hitching the car to the truck, she only watched Alice, placed a hand timidly on Alice's still arm.  Alice turned to face her, eyes gleaming, wet.  She wore that same mixed smile.

Soon they were by the road, yellow fields all over the distance except for that one grey strip, the white truck and ruby car.  Jenna said hello to Bob.  Alice greeted him.  They shook hands.  Alice and Grandpa faced each other, extended their hands.  Everything was quiet.

Soon they embraced.  Jenna saw tears in each of their eyes, and yet they laughed.  They laughed for what felt like forever.

Alice left in an awkward, teary silence.  Jenna didn't know what to make of it, and as time passed she stared at the road more and felt inclined to speak less, until one day a little sparkle grew on the horizon, something gleaming in the sun, gliding like a fairy along the bends of the road, until it grew close enough that Jenna could see it sparkled like a red jewel.

Gemma sat on the porch and watched, feeling her lungs inflate, tense like an over-filled balloon.  Then her heart. 

She bit her lip as the car came close to their gate, trying not to let herself hope.

But it stopped.

And soon enough, a woman emerged.  Jenna knew who it was.  She ran inside and burst into the living room where Grandpa sat, reading.

"Granpa, it's... it's her!"

He jumped up from the chair, the book tumbling to his feet.  "You mean--"

"It's Alice!"

Jenna watched as Grandpa ran to meet the car, and Alice, still small in the distance, ran back to meet him.  Grandpa looked almost light on his feet, as if the sight of Alice shed ten years away.  They embraced.  Their faces pressed together, in a kiss just like Jenna had seen in the photographs of Grandpa and Grandma, heard about in stories of parties and weddings.

Then amidst the sound of their laughter, Jenna ran to them, and joined the embrace, hugging them both at the thighs and feeling two gentle hands on her head.  They all laughed for what felt like forever, and this time, Alice never left.

August Sander, 1951                              

Wm. Luke Everest is a Canadian with an American green card living in England. He rants about writing and dream catching on his blog: everestbyfog.blogspot.com.

He appeared previously in Chrome Bairn 1