First Light [Vace | AU post-60th]

v a s c o

"But if you ask me to come to you

To leave these fields and these skies of blue

You know I'd be leaving my sacred ground"

We spent the morning guessing who they’d send to us.

Saturdays had usually been reserved for sleeping in, which hadn’t ever meant much more than getting to see the sun burn tangerine through the clouds before mamá would call up to get our lazy bones out of bed. But we were already well awake when we heard her start to turn the coffee grinder and light the kerosene on the stove. Druso had said he hoped it was a girl who knew how to ride, his grin wide while he crashed against the screaming mattress to imitate a bull rider in ten. Bakar wanted someone that could pull their weight (instead of useless hands like Jurgi or Vas). And Aresti only adding that it could be anyone, so long as it meant he got a few extra minutes in bed.

Staring at the empty cot dressed against the flecks of sunlight pouring in through the blinds, I couldn’t picture who they’d send out to our farm. We’d always grown at the edges of the district. Even under a patchwork of cracked soil and across weeds, our family had grown upward, spreading out and blossoming along the riverbed. Free to speak a language disappeared to dust elsewhere. Tin roofs and full bellies even when it seemed we had nothing else.

“We’ve better things to do than roll out a red carpet,” Papá had chirped from behind his coffee cup. Where Lordes and Manuela had put together a little basket and a banner welcoming the wind tossed ranch hand headed our way, he had no interest in adding another mouth to feed. But the capitol had amped up production with a special program bringing tens to eleven. Something to do with earthquakes that had struck elsewhere but, it didn’t really matter the reason so much as they said we had to.

We’d waited as long as we could afford, which had meant a good twenty-minutes after the last plate had been cleared. Bakar headed out to start on making some trenches while Druso and Aresti went off to bail the hay. Which left me to help the patch of tomatoes out at the edges of the fence toward the road.

I breathed in the dust and wet from the chalky leaves and started at the spots of tendrils growing out the ground. I while away the morning, hands dragging through dirt, tossing out rocks and weeds. It wasn't until I heard the familiar crunch of gravel that I bothered to look up.

He cast a shadow from the road, and at first, I couldn’t place his face.

Our tv hadn’t the best picture, black and white and fuzzy, and I still put my hand over my eyes over the worst parts of the games. But he was unmistakable, the one who’d just two years ago come out crowned. I could feel the heat rise from the earth and the sweat form rivulets circling along my temples.

“You,” I stood up from my knees, and wiped a hand across my forehead. I lifted the cotton of my tank to brush back the dirt, “You're here to stay with us?”

When you see a man who’s killed up close, you can’t help but wonder why they look so much smaller in person.

But I suppose death looms larger than a man ever could.