WRITING: Envy

There was a place far down the road and up the hill around the bend where peaches grew as big as canteloupes.  And in the crisp of autumn air (quite crisp here, crisper there) the apple-laden branches glowed red and groaned.  Winter snow was never brown and muddy with the dirt of roads but like a sparkling diamond necklace lay coiled and long.  Dressed in crystal facets that threw rainbows in the sun, the snaking road led up and up and to a home.  But what a home!  No mansion, still its windows gleamed with firelit light and applewood scented air rose from its chimney.  Hand-hewn timbers framed the rooms and quilts of satin roses matched the filmy curtains smiling on the window sills. On the porch, along the front sat a wicker couch, two chairs, a table, and on the tree out front there hung a small child’s swing.  It was a place that welcomed you, it was a place serene, and yet the only one who lived there was alone.

He was a man who knew the land, he’d lived there all his life as did his father and his father’s dad before him.  They’d all put something in the house, strong hands to build and plant and from the harvest they would put up the precious fruit.  It was the sweetest (everyone just knew) and their grapes would sing in deep red wine (though no one in the town had ever sipped the brew).

It rained out there just in time to fill the well, or sprout the fields or plump the fruit to let it ripen in the sun.  But in the town the black clouds hovered, rained hard to wash the soil away and the strong wind blew weeks or even months in rows (or so they claimed).

The man was old, last of his line, and yet he had no visitors at all, no conversation, nor any friends to share his bounty.  His lawns were green but greener still were all the people round him in the miles of yellow brittle grass of the county.

It took some days in winter nights for someone to notice lack of lights, another day or two before they thought to check.  But old George Stone had mellowed some, and so he cautiously made his way one day along the hill and down the road and round the bend.

The man was buried in the town, surrounded by the folk who’d frowned before him at his father and his dad.  With no one left, the land was gone to those who scorned yet hid desires to run and quickly claim it for their own.  Divided up, the house torn down, and old George got the apple trees but in five years he’d never plucked the fruit. 

It rains there now from clouds that moved from town along the grey rocked snaking road, and up the hill and round the bend and on.