A Certain Peace
Lucas stood before the wheat that morning and began taking stock. Desperate for work, he accepted the job without seeing the sum of it, and now he worried the landholder’s word was anything but forthright. He looked at the dirt when he spoke, not at Lucas, the way a man should. And his words were sour, like a thing that might poison you. Something didn’t set right, but there were other men in the line, thin, worn men, ready to say yes to anything. His stomach was empty, so he nodded, taking the landholder’s bony hand.
The man said his work would start here at the fence, but he wasn’t able to see its end, couldn’t see twenty yards, for the fog clung to the earth, still, weighty, unmoving, as a dream that continues its haunting into the day. A road ran along the field, with utility poles and their sagging wires, until they disappeared, consumed by the hungry mist. He shivered in the moist air, for he’d not worn a shirt, as he never did, looking forward to when the effort would heat his body and chase away the chill on his bare shoulders. Now, in his third decade, he’d learned not to fear work, for with honest labor, he’d overcome anything that mattered.
The barbed wire fence that stood between him and the field showed the decay brought by earth and rain. It was rusted, twisted even. A length of chicken wire had wrapped itself in the nearest section, and he thought that a cruel joke—a fence caught in a fence. He touched one of the barbs. Foolish, for it cut him. He felt a shooting pain that only lingered a second but cleared the sluggishness from his thoughts. There was blood enough to form a drop, so he wiped it on his jeans, then he sucked on his finger until the blood was done. But something caught his eye, and when he looked up, there was nothing, only the crop and the mist, unchanged, yet somehow more portent now.
He knew today would be tough, for the landholder said it was a full two acres, about what he could cut and bundle on his best day. But this field was dank and wouldn’t dry soon, and he regretted agreeing to the offer, four bits an acre. And though his scythe was sharp, he’d need to stop every now and again to hone the blade, which would slow him. He’d never understood how its edge could dull to a butter knife against a damp crop. He would need to strike almost at the soil with a fast blade to get clean cuts, but he would relish the extra effort, the rawness of it. Lucas could already feel the ache in his muscles from the swing of the implement. His shoulders would burn until a numbness would start near his collarbone, then creep down his arms to his wrists, his hands, his fingers.
His brother had been in the ground now, going on three years, and his broad, earnest face was all but gone from his memory, yet the sorrow persisted almost apart from his recollections. The debt on his brother’s farm was too much, and Lucas had to let it out to another landholder to cultivate, just to keep up the payments. He should sell it, for he couldn’t work it himself. Too much for one man. No getting ahead. That’s why he craved this work, with pain loud enough to silence his heart, enough to forget his brother’s lot of sorrow where he fell and died.
Lucas struck at one of the molded posts with the back of the scythe blade. Instead of the solidness he expected, it gave up a spongy thud. He parted the wire with the handle and ducked through, stepping into the field. It was still green, the wheat not yet reaching his hips. He squatted in the cakey soil at the field’s edge and examined the crop. The stems hadn’t booted; it was at least a month from mature. Perhaps the landholder had planted late, or maybe the crop was slow this year and he didn’t check to see it wasn’t ripe. In fact, it didn’t look as though anyone’d been to this field in months. And the dampness. It was all wrong. You cut your wheat when it was hot and dry, not wet like it was. He feared there was some deceit. Cut it all and bundle it for silage, the man had said, but now Lucas suspected the landholder was covering for his own mistakes, claiming some loss he wasn’t entitled to. And he might use the state of the field to deny Lucas his wage. You fool! You shoulda known it wasn’t fit to cut, he might say, his eyes shifting. But Lucas was a powerful man, and though he abhorred violence, he could easily summon a rage in himself to overcome most men. He’d get the money by force, if he had to. Some men needed reminding what their word meant.
Still, he set aside these thoughts. Today, the fact the wheat was green didn’t count for anything, for he needed the wage not for the debt, or the future, but for today, to survive. Even more, his muscles needed the effort, for a weight hung just below his thoughts, ready to pull him down. So he took his gloves from his rear pocket and slid them on, flexing his fists.
Just then, the mist swirled a stone’s throw out, reminding him of his unease, but just as quickly was gone, as though nothing had happened. And the heavy sadness welled up in him, as it often did in these moments, so powerful it threatened to bring him to his knees and cry out. But instead, he wound back the scythe, bending his elbows and drove it down into the wheat, and then again, and again.
This story is a work of fiction. Except where explicitly identified in the afterword, the names, characters, and incidents herein are a product of the author’s creation and any resemblance to actual persons or events is entirely coincidental.
A CERTAIN PEACE. Text copyright © 2025 by Mark Mrozinski LLC. All rights reserved.
No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in retrieval systems, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.
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