I have added more to this first chapter. I realized that I hadn’t checked the spelling and grammar like I thought I had! so it was really horrendous! I also wanted to add more about John’s situation and add more about how John could have felt. I have to update the other chapters as well! but 1-3 is done. I also took out the name of the specific battle that I had previously decided that he had been in because it was stopping me from writing freely about his situation. Now it’s a random battle and easier to write about now. Spoiler Alert! Jammy was able to run away from those men and to safety.
Sunflowers to the West
Chapter 1 Up Before Dawn
John had traveled many miles that day and it was getting dark. He had wondered to himself if he had made the right choice for his career. His family had moved on several years ago and so he had put himself in for this position. He had liked a very regimented life full of structure so he thought that this would be the perfect job for himself after returning from the battle. Today was just another day when he had woken up before dawn, for it had been easy to wake up at 3:00 in the morning. He had not been able to go back to sleep, just like all of the other mornings. When he was at battle, so far away from his family, he had counted the days before coming home but now all of the days ran together. ‘Besides, no one else is around anyhow.’ he thought to himself. This was his third winter riding this horse and delivering mail for the United States Postal Service. He remembered coming back and seeing his family in the state they were in after he had been a ghost in a place of death. They walked away, leaving him alone with his heart, mind and soul destroyed. His insides were churning remembering, and he felt that an early death had fell upon him as they walked away from him. They were all he could think about during those four years of fear and dread during the battle, wondering if he was going to stay alive. He felt like an empty tomb every day for the last three years since that time and his only friend was this god forsaken horse that carried him to each person receiving the mail. He respected this horse and needed Jammy to be well fed so that he could have a stable career. He didn’t know the future, but he was trying to be hopeful. He housed this horse because he was too far from the main barn that held the rest of the horses that were being used by other carriers of the mail for the post office department. He could feel his feet becoming more and more numb from the cold air and he was worried that he would get frostbite again. He had to talk to his boss to see if he was going to receive his payment yet. The bosses always made excuses about why he was not getting paid in a timely manner. He assumed that the rest of the carriers were getting paid sooner than he was since they lived closer to the bosses’ house, but he had not been able to ask them, and the carriers were prohibited from talking about such matters. He was frustrated that he was so far away that he couldn’t talk to any of them. He just saddled his horse every morning in the dark and picked up the letters to be delivered in the delivery box that had been set up by the bosses. He wondered what was happening in their neck of the woods this morning. He wanted to ride several miles to the bosses’ house, but he wanted to go home to soak his feet in hot water and salts. John thought about what else he could deliver to these people out here in the middle of nowhere. He wondered why they lived out here. He had heard from the bosses last year that this area was going to have a town built and he wondered when that was going to happen. Memories of his children walking in the snow flooded his mind as he saw snowflakes coming down. He wondered where they were. His wife, who he had trusted, told his children only lies about him and his decisions. He could not convince his children of the truth, and it seemed that they wanted to believe those lies so that they could feel justified about leaving him after he came back from the battle. She had met another man who was very important and very wealthy. He knew that this man only destroyed the people around him to gain his position in society and John abhorrently hated him. How had that man he been able to poison his family’s mind against him? It seemed that all that John stood for was only torn down by this wealthy man. He gave only material goods to his wife and children. He only had the money from his wealthy family to claim as his own because he never worked for anything else. He was somewhat older than his wife, and her personality had changed since spending time with this evil man. He wished that he could convince his wife to come to her senses and bring his children and herself back, but he had not been able to do so. He asked himself everyday about this situation. Did his family leave him behind? How could that have happened? What was he supposed to do? Where were they now? He realized that he only had two more miles to go and two more deliveries to make. He touched his horses’ sides with his inner thighs which signaled his horse to trot faster. He liked Jammy, but he knew it wasn’t his horse. He had to keep it safe because the United States Postal Service owned this horse. At night he had taken his horse inside his house to keep warm just in case he could die in the cold winter air. John was happy to have a large porch that was on the side of his house that could receive heat from his fireplace to keep the horse warm. He hated to think of the horse being by himself in the barn in the cold. It would be better in the summer months but that was a long way off it seemed. He trotted to the last delivery and John saw a woman standing on her front porch enjoying the snow coming down. She was smiling and letting the snow stick on her tongue as she looked up into the sky. He got down from his horse and walked up to the porch to deliver the mail to her. The name on the letter read Hank Jones. John looked up from the letter and the woman was not there. He wondered if she had walked to the side of the house. He started to put the letter in the drop box on the door, but the door opened. A small elderly man with round rimmed glasses appeared. His blue suspenders held up his oversized, brown pants. He piped up and said, “Hello son! How are you doing on this fine snowy day? It seems that we will never be rid of all this snow!” “Well hello sir! I just came to give you your mail and I saw a woman on your porch enjoying the snow, so I came to say ‘hello’ because we are required to meet our customers if they are outside.” John looked at the old man and wondered why he seemed to be perplexed and confused. He looked at John and said, “No there isn’t a woman who lives here.” The old man’s voice trailed off.
Chapter 2 The Old Man
John stared at the old man in his round rimmed glasses, wondering what to say. John went through the steps in his mind that he had taken to make sure that he was at the correct house. John turned and looked at the road and then the driveway and then again at the old man. He smiled at the man with his worried furrowed brow, wondering if he was ok. He remembered how he had seen the young woman in the blue dress staring off into the distance and tasting the snow. John remembered turning into the driveway with his loud, clopping horse and noticed that she did not acknowledge him coming up the driveway. John felt suddenly uneasy about the old man standing in front of him. John noticed that the old man looked nervous while John was retracing his steps. John said, “Oh! I am sorry. I have been traveling since very early this morning, and I must have been seeing things!” John laughed heartily to try and get the old man to stop looking so worried because his confusion was very unnerving and worrisome. The old man brightened somewhat, looking relieved that John did not want to press the issue. John wondered how old this man was and if he was getting brain confusion. John had seen this type of response when he talked to other soldiers back in the war when they had become wounded. Their ongoing pain seemed to cause them to not be able to make sense of seemingly normal situations. John said, “Sir how long have you lived out here? The house looks very well taken care of!” The old man looked suspicious of John and John hurriedly said, “I have seen so many houses out here that look so weathered and beaten down. You have really done so many things to keep up with all of the work that has had to be done!” The man smiled at John and looked around at the outside of the house and the driveway. “Yep! Done all that myself!” John smiled earnestly and wondered if he should try to look around back for the woman. He really did wonder if he was seeing something that was not there. John stated, “The snow is coming in I guess, and I must be moving on to get back to my house down the way sir. Thank you for the conversation.” The old man asked, “How long have you been delivering the mail?” John explained, “It has been a very long three years trying to get through these muddy roads and dry spells of dust devils spinning around me!” John laughed heartily again. The old man smiled and said, “Oh! You know I used to deliver the mail a very long time ago and I will never forget how all of the mail came about and spluttered into my driveway. I would just pick it up and see who it all was for! I would jump into my carriage and start flying down the road to get all of those letters delivered to the right people! They were everywhere, here and there, son. Don’t you remember how it was for all of us?” John, feeling fearful, stared at the old man and did not know what to say. The old man went on, “John where have you been since yesterday and beyond that? We have been wondering what to do to get home, John. Please help us and we will help you and your cat and all of your other animals on this farm to get back into the barn, okay John?” John stuttered, “How did you know my name?” The old man laughed, “I have always known what your name is John, don’t you remember?” John saw that the old man had a pained look on his face and suddenly look past his shoulder at something that was behind him. The man pointed his index finger right at John who turned fearfully around. The young woman was standing there in her blue dress smiling knowingly at the old man. John could see that the young woman’s face was becoming old and wrinkled, and her teeth looked like they were rotting away in her mouth. She had looked so young standing on the front porch. John felt his stomach cramp up with fear again and he started seeing black spots. He forced himself to look back at the old man who said imploringly, “Look John, Helen has returned. We need to leave from here to go back, please help us. We all are suffering a long cold winter, and we need you to take us back! Like I just said! Please don’t miss the signs!” John turned to look at the woman who had softly laughed, but she had disappeared. He jolted his head back to look at the old man and he was gone. The house that the old man had been standing in front of suddenly looked different. All of the windows on the front of the house by the porch were now broken and cracked with bullet holes. The porch that led up to the front door had sunken into itself and the door was now falling off of its hinges. Weeds grew up through the porch and covered the pillars that looked like they had once been on fire. The front step was withering away and charred by fire. John had remembered when he had arrived that he had heard some cows lowing in the distance and some chickens had been scratching the dirt and clucking, but all was silent. John turned around and hurriedly walked his horse back to the road. He wanted to get away from this whole area and never deliver the mail ever again. He had assumed that the mail that he had gotten was to be delivered to this house on this road, but he wondered how this had happened. He remembered that he did not put the mail in the slot into the door like he had intended. He looked down in his pouch and the letter that was addressed to Hank Jones was still there sitting in the bottom of that leather bag, moving as he walked. He looked at the address and wondered if he had accidentally turned down the wrong road somehow. The address was the same as the numbers that had been scrawled with yellow and blue paint on the front step by someone’s finger sometime in the past. He hoisted himself up onto the saddle of his horse. He squeezed Jammy’s sides quickly to signal him to get to the safety of his house.
Chapter 3 The Snow
The snow started falling faster than John had hoped for. He realized that it could be about 4:00 in the afternoon as he started trotting his horse, Jammy, faster. He thought that he had turned into that driveway to deliver that letter at about 2:00 in the afternoon. He realized that he must have taken two hours at the last delivery. He wanted to keep his head on straight so that he would not worry about it being too late to get home before dark. The feeling of the air was changing, and John was wondering if he was imagining it. John tried to signal to Jammy to run on that gravel road to get them home quickly but Jammy would not obey. The sun was moving across the sky at an alarming rate, he noticed that it was now over his right shoulder instead of above him where it had been when he had walked his horse into the yard of the old man’s house. He told himself that he was too tired that day and that getting more rest would help. He remembered how he had forgotten his lunch as his stomach felt so empty. His eyes trailed over to his right to find the group of trees that had always directed him, but he noticed that they were not there. He rubbed his eyes hoping that it was just a mistake. He looked at the road and then to his right again to try and find where that group of trees were for, they had always been there, but now, those trees were gone. His stomach started to tighten in worry about whether he had delivered the United States mail to the wrong houses. He wondered to himself if the snow was covering this group of trees. He could see the mountains in the distance, but they looked different, they seemed to be slanted differently than they had been before. John wondered what had happened in the past at that house that he never wanted to speak of with anyone. He wondered what the bosses would say to him, would they believe him? What would they say to him? He would have to tell them that he had one piece of mail that was undelivered even though he had shown up to deliver it to their porch. He was thinking of how he could explain this situation to them without seeming like he was going crazy. They might say that he was unfit for this position. While he was thinking of this situation, he wondered why all of his surroundings seemed unfamiliar. He noticed that his horse was slowing, and he felt his frustration well up inside of him about all of these situations that he could not get hold of and why were they all happening to him at once? The house that he had delivered to that came before his last delivery was taking too long in getting into his sights and he started to really worry. Suddenly he saw movement in the canal that ran along side of the road, on the right side. The movement seemed to be a flash of a person, and he started to sweat as fear swept over him. He could feel the burning and tingling of his skin starting to climb down from his scalp to his face. It started spreading down his neck and then out over his back. As he looked at the canal, he saw a huge wall of snow drifting upon him and his horse, and that flash came again and then was gone. His mustache and eyelashes started to feel stiff on his face. His eyes started to water which caused them to freeze in their open position. John tried to close his eyes but could not. His heart started wildly beating with the fear of losing his eyeballs to frostbite. He looked down at his brown leather coat and the saddle that was strapped to Jammy. He was hearing his horse’s lumbered breathing and he became extremely worried for Jammy. His body started to feel extremely hot as his temperature started to rise under his clothes. He wondered why he felt so ill, suddenly. He was so angry with himself that he had taken so long at the last house. Had he fallen into some sort of trance? He felt Jammy suddenly move to the right side of the road closer to the canal. John could see the road that was ahead of them a little clearer here and he felt relieved. His body was getting increasingly more and more stiff because the cold air was freezing his overheated body. He couldn’t move his limbs to hold the straps on the horse. He did not know what to do except sit there and worry. He looked down to his right and saw the dirt of the empty canal. He then saw the flash again and a woman’s graceful hand holding the lead that was strapped to Jammy’s head. He could hear a thunderous voice inside of his head say, “It’s okay, I am here and am leading you in a different direction.” He could feel Jammy was becoming suddenly calm and his breathing was becoming more stable. John could see the fluttering of the woman’s clothing to his right but could not decipher what they were made from. He felt his horse slip down into the canal as he tried to gain footing so that he would not fall. He started getting extremely tired and worried that his body had become too cold, he did not want to get hypothermia. He remembered during the war, sitting with other soldiers in the trenches that they had dug out to hide in. They would sit there for hours in the cold air waiting for the other side to come into their sight. They were not able to get up to stretch or move and their bodies would become stiff with frostbite. Some of those men died in those sitting positions because their bodies had gotten too cold for too long, and their blood would stop circulating. These men would pass away right next to the other soldier who had sat with him for hours and days. The dead had to be buried by that soldier or left in that position of death to rot. Many soldiers were lost in those places because there were no markings on those trenches. He suddenly remembered the drums that were loudly strummed upon to instruct all of them where to go next. He was back with all of them fighting in the snow again hearing the drumbeats, remembering what it had been like and trying to keep himself upright on his horse. He wondered what would happen to him and Jammy.
Chapter 4 The letter
John could hear Jammy’s feet clop on the road next to his head. He could feel the cold air circulating around his whole body, but his forehead was wet with perspiration. His head was beating as though his chest was inside of it. His heart was beating so loudly inside of his head. He tried to turn over onto his left side to relieve some of the pressure he felt in every inch of his body, but he was strapped to a burlap feed bag. He tried to open his eyes, but the feed bag was covering his eyes as well. He wondered where he was and what had happened to him. He wanted to cry out to someone, but the wheels of the wagon was so loud he knew that he would not be heard. He heard the ‘hup’ of the wagon driver instructing his horses. John felt the wagon turn off of the road into a ditch. He realized that some metal pieces were attached to his left side and his body fell upon these metal pieces as they turned to go down into the ditch. John imagined them riding through a field of dirt and dust, but he remembered the snow and wondered if there was a road that they were traveling on since the wagon was not getting stuck in the mud. John heard ‘hup’ again as the driver instructed the horses to turn the wagon to the left and then the wagon abruptly stopped. The driver got up from his seat and shuffled his feet across the bottom of the seat to get down. The wagon bounced under his weight which made John’s head throb harder. John knew that he was stuck in that wagon bound to the metal clamp on his side so that he could not get out and run. He wondered about Jammy and what was going to happen to him. He heard Jammy snort at him, and he tried to nuzzle John, but the driver quickly took him away. John heard him walking and heard him snorting in displeasure. John heard another man walking up to get Jammy, “Howdy man, is he another field hand for us?” The driver exclaimed, “Yes sir he was found in a field that is a long way off from here with his horse dragging him around by his saddle. The Saddle looks official.” “Alright do not get your hopes up, we have to put this horse in the barn and leave the saddle in the loft. This horse looks fine for us to use at any time.” John felt stricken with fear when he heard what the man was saying. “How much do you think we could get for this sucker? You know this might be one of those men who toiled for that front. I heard about it. They came out of that side of the war to work delivering mail to people. I heard the men talk about that group and they are shutting them down to get more of an official circulation department going so the money is going to the right places and people. I found one of his letters. This house that it is addressed to has been abandoned for years. This letter is made out to the right people, but they died long ago.” “Why are you talking? I want this man to die and his way of living so we will put him in the lowest field we got, man” “alright, but you never listen! This house is abandoned! Why does he have this letter for these dead people? Who wrote it?” “Dummy, look at the top left, that is who.” “Yes, I know that much, but what I mean is…. Why is this here? Those witches lived there.” He whispered. “Look I don’t know but we need to get him to the field before he dies, put the letter in the compartment of the saddle. Did he have a bag?” “Yes, its next to him.” “Take it and sell it and we will split the money.” “I have to split that with you? I got him, didn’t I? I had to lift him and pull his horse up!” “Fine, how about I get two dollars of it and you can get the rest, but you have to find a buyer and all of that.” “Ok it will take me a while snake.” “Sucker! But you agreed to it swine.” John wanted to cry and ask the driver to let him go as he was walking up to the wagon. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know that this could happen to him. The driver got into the seat of the wagon and John tried to call out to him, but he couldn’t speak. The sound of his voice would not come out of his throat, and he started crying. The driver yelled at him to be quiet while he started driving the two horses out of the yard. John assumed that he was taking him to the lower field. The driver pulled out of the yard and onto the road. John’s body rolled onto the metal again and stuck into his skin. They felt like sharp razors digging into his skin. He cried out in pain. The driver yelled at him again, “Son you will have to be quiet because no one likes to hear a man complain about nothin! We on this side do not care about you and your nervousness about this whole field of people just waiting on you to show up! I laugh at how you think that you should not be in this situation. I have seen men like you and you have ruined our whole countryside with your ways of living. I will be taking your bag and selling it because you will not be needing it anymore. Your horse is gone because I will be using it and selling it or both and you can do nothing about it. I am so happy to have you in the lowest field. I oversee a different field, but I am transferring to the lower field so that I can watch what you are doing at every moment. You are a sad man who fought for the wrong side. The side of sadness is what we call your side. You and your mail carrying days are over because they are ending your job but did not tell you. So sad, huh! They ended it many weeks ago. I do not know how long you had been in that field with your horse dragging you along but since you could not stay on the saddle you are a useless, useless person, son. I do not know who you are and since you are mute, I assume that you are poor and homeless so you will be bound to us. You will understand how we live and work and see the world and then you will eventually let all of your friends know that we can enslave who we want and when we want, and no one will ever help you. If you survive, I will be surprised.” John felt as though he was frozen in time and wondered where that woman was who had guided him and Jammy off of the road. The driver started to laugh and taunted him the rest of the way. John felt the wagon turn right and into a field where he heard men calling out orders to the field workers. The driver stepped into the wagon from his seat and pushed John out of the wagon and onto the ground. He fell onto the metal pieces and John realized that they were wedged into his skin. He saw light coming through his blindfold on his head as two men kicked the metal pieces that were wedged into his side. He wanted to be sick, but he held it in. He couldn’t breathe. The two men grabbed his body and then walked several feet away from that area. They were laughing and making fun of how he looked. The driver was laughing with them and told them that he was mute and that he had been crying in the wagon on the way.
Chapter 5 Please Get Up
John felt straps being tied to his wrists. The two men hooked the straps to the back of the wagon, and he heard the driver yell ‘hep’ to his overworked horses. John could feel the wagon lurch forward and his straps tightened on his wrists. He wondered if he should try to drag himself to make it easier on his body, but the metal wedges cinched his intestines even tighter. John fell forward and he smacked his throbbing head onto the hard, graveled ground. He saw the outside light as it grew even lighter. He heard the men laughing in the distance as their large faces were mocking him right next to his ears. The wagon started to slowly pull forward and then the driver commanded his horses to drive faster as he yelled at the people who had been crowding the wagon to, “Get out of the way! The driver dragged John over the gravel, dirt and mud that still had frozen bits of snow, making the earth compact and frozen. The sound of the wheels of the wagon were deafening to his ears, and they drove haphazardly over the rough terrain. The wagon suddenly stopped in the middle of the field. John had many questions coming into his mind, and he wondered how his horse Jammy was and if he was still alive. John could not hear anything, and the driver had become very quiet. John could only hear his own breathing, and the metal pieces were hanging, pulled halfway out of his side. Blood was flowing slowly out of his wound where they had ripped his flesh. He could not put any pressure on that area to stop the blood because his hands were tied. John noticed how bright the sun was, as it penetrated the top of his head. He tried to kneel further down, and it was easier to accomplish than he thought it would be. The straps had stretched and loosened and so he took this chance to lay his shoulder down on the gravel. He wondered where all of the people were but could not make sense of it. Suddenly he saw familiar boots walking on the other side of the wagon and he felt fear rising in his stomach into his throat. John tried to remember what year it was at that moment. He heard the familiar scuffling of these boots walking, the boots that he had always remembered but had forgotten about. Then he heard his ringing voice, “John! now, why are you down on the ground? Didn’t you tell your mother that you were going to be gone today?” John said nothing. “John, I have never approved of you, look at me son. You always disappointed me.” John looked up at the man standing over him, blocking out the light. The man was his father, who had died many years ago and his mother had passed on soon after because of her grief of being without him. She never knew what to do with herself after he had gone. The house was empty, and the trees would sway silently in the wind outside her bedroom window. He and his family had tried to help her, but she had become quiet with no one to talk to or argue with. John wondered why he was standing here. Wasn’t he dead? John could not find any words to say but only felt his stomach clenching his body. “John, you have to get up and run away.” He suddenly heard his mother’s voice coming through his father’s mouth. He saw her long brown hair swaying in the wind behind his father’s head. He always had conversations with his mother about life and what he should do with himself in the barn while he had taken care of the animals. She had always talked to him while she was brushing the horses. He remembered that she always wore her barn coat and boots that she had all of his life, and then she passed away that day because his father was gone. He looked into his father’s hollow eyes wondering if his father was there looking at him being dragged behind this wagon by these cruel people. “John, you are not to be talking to your mother and not getting your work done. You keep wondering what to do but you are asking the wrong person, John. Now when you have gotten your school work done you can go take in the cattle as a relief from all of this work today! He looked over his shoulder and laughed at John’s mother. John could hear her laughing behind him.” John suddenly felt hatred for his father. His father looked down at him again and said accusingly, “John, I am ordering you to get up and stop stalling, can you see yourself? Remember your sweet wife, John? She took your family and left you for that very rich man who helped her keep her head while you were gone fighting. They adore him and they hate you, plain and simple. You are worth nothing to them and they are happiest when you are not around. you and your values, Johny, stifle them, but they always stifled everyone!” John saw his father’s face glowing and becoming distorted as he was talking. John looked down at the ground and saw his father’s boots start to move away from him and slowly the dusty brown boots walked back around the wagon and then they disappeared behind the wagon wheel. He heard his mother’s voice faintly talking in the distance, “Johny, you have to get this done on your own, please get up.” John could feel the air becoming different, lighter and not so heavy and he could hear the people talking and yelling angrily in the distance.
Chapter 6 Singing in the distance.
John wanted to take many moments to take all of this in. He was frustrated at himself for not feeling better about his mother’s death and his father’s anger. He knew that he always wanted to blame his father for every single thing that his family had suffered but he felt so much anger at his mother and her weakness. He wanted to think about these things but knew that he had to make some decisions about his current situation. He knew that he had to try to get away from these people but how could he get away when they had his whole body and life under their control. He hated the earth and that is all that he could figure out. He wondered if the men would come back or if they would leave him here to hopefully die. How could he be in this situation of death. He tried to remember the war and all of the situations that he had been in and if any of them had been worse. He thought of a few situations, but he had always been free to talk to the other soldiers and all of the officers about what was happening and what to do. They had all been in those situations and this time it was just him being stuck with no way out and with no one to talk to for any advisement. In the war, if it was the other side they had permission to do what they wanted, and the other side was always on his territory but now he was on their territory containing him and making him work for them and going through undeserved punishment and torture. He had wished that his side had annihilated every one of these people so that they could not torture him and all of these other people. He knew that the other side did not see it that way. He knew that they felt entitled to torturing anyone that they could find no matter who they were. He heard footsteps of the driver walking back and getting on the wagon. He started the horses with a ‘hep!’ John heard him say with laughter, ” Hey son! Are you still back there behind this wagon all tied up with your head split open and your side torn to shreds? We have to get you back to society, our society of fearfulness. We found yuh, now we is goin’ to use yuh as they would say. I’s uh describin’ you’se situational painful dilemma of bein’ on the wrong sides back then and now! Now! Start walkin’ behind this wagon. Wait!” The driver hollered. “Don’t start, I am going to untie you.” He got down and walked towards John. John had tried to get up, but his body had seemingly fused to the ground as he had no adrenaline left to help him to get up and walk. “Ok, whatever you’se name is, I am goin’ to let you off this wagon as a favorin. Now, in order to survive you are going to have to find the large group of people called society, who is workin’ that land over yonder. They are located to the left of this wagon.” He pointed in the air across the field to his left as he was bent over John’s head. I am going to leave right now cuz I can’t stand the sight of yuh and your slowness of state in gettin’ up and walkin’ with all this blood pourin out and don’t get it on my boots. I guessin’ I shouldn’t do this favorin for yuh!” John hated this ugly man and his illiterate way of talking. John guessed that he was just a rat of low rank in whatever military section that had been available to him over in this part of the country. John wondered why they had him here. “Now person, remember that, that is the lower field, and you have to get there to survive. Look, I may never see you again because I don’t like this business. We have become friends, right? Say it!” John choked out a ‘yes!’ from his parched throat, trying to convince him of his agreement. “Good! Now I will leave you here. Don’t forget me in paradise! HaHa, no you ain’t nobody uh specialin. Remember that much, Ok?” John could sense that this man felt sorrow about something, and John wondered what it could be. The man ruffled John’s hair as he got up and scuffled towards the wagon. John heard a sorrowful ‘hep’ from the driver after he got up onto the creaky wagon. The wagon started moving away from John. The wagon had been shading John and the sun started beating down on his beaten body even stronger. He hoped that he would not make it to the lower field as he lay in the scorching sun. His thoughts trailed off and he wondered about his family and what they were doing today. He did not know what day it was, but he wondered if her new husband had a pool, and he imagined them swimming and running and laughing with each other. He felt his head being shaded by the sun and he immediately tried to open his eyes but his head throbbed. He could only open one eye a small amount and he saw the shadow of a person looming over him and then he heard a woman singing in the distance.
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