Haystacks
The Boy was born into a world of heavy brush strokes.
The golden rays slanted softly on the mounds of haystacks, which brought out the blueish tint in the shadows. There’s a sharpness to an individual strand of straw, but distance allows haystacks the illusion of softness.
The Boy ran between the tall haystacks, smiling, as he trampled the grass underfoot. His soft white dress fluttered behind. Sis chased after him, laughing.
No one would catch him, not even his sister.
The constant field work left the Boy’s palms permanently calloused. One night he sat on Sis’s bed and held her hands in his. He traced the lines of her soft hands with his rough fingers. He wished he could touch the fabric of life with hands like hers; how delicate and beautiful life would be. But that wasn’t the way of things in this world of heavy brush strokes. “Let my hands go,” said Sis, pulling them from his grasp.
Some nights the Boy would lie in bed staring at the ceiling with the presence of farmland out his window, and he’d know all the work that went into growing the crops, the work he did today, the work he’d have to do tomorrow, but for that moment, he’d look at the popcorn ceiling and think of the moon’s surface. He’d picture himself wearing a white wedding dress on the moon. Black space all around, but a white sandy ground and a white wedding dress with elaborate lace. That was the most beautiful thing he could picture.
He would feel the harshness of his calloused hands and hate them. He’d get up to pee in the quiet of the night, his dad snoring down the hall, Mama dreaming of Hawaii, and his sister asleep with her hands resting delicately on top of one another, and he’d sit on the cold toilet seat and touch nothing below the waist.
One day when his parents were out, Sis caught him in the bathroom twirling with her dress on. Her mouth twisted in shock as she let out a screech. His cheeks were already in rouge, but now his face was awash in burgundy. “Just playin’,” he said. “Don’t you like?” He forced his courage, stuck in his throat, to twirl playfully again as she stood with her eyes wide. He knew he had seconds before she’d either see the harmlessness of his actions or realize this was something she’d tell their daddy about. He ran up to her, took hold of her waist, and picked her up like he always did as her brother. He lifted her into the air with his calloused hands and said, “Didn’t you always want a sister?” She laughed in spite of herself and then demanded that he put her down.
The following week, their dad was at the neighbor’s helping work on a broken-down tractor and Mama was in town on her weekly errands. Sis was reading a book on the couch and the Boy tiptoed into her room and took another dress and a pair of matching high-heeled shoes. Back in his bedroom, he slipped off his overalls and t-shirt and shimmied into his older sister’s Sunday dress, the one with the big sunflowers. He took off his socks because his feet were already too big and stuffed his toes into her high heels, which made it impossible to walk. He loved how delicate the dress felt. But the fabric kept brushing against the penis, reminding him of it, and he hated the reminder. He pushed the penis between his legs and held his thighs together. The back of his calloused hands ran down the softness of the fabric, and his eyes closed. He was now a girl in New York or some foreign city, Paris or Rome, seeing the sights, out for the night, dancing, far away from the haystacks back home. Far from the thick brush strokes that predetermined how he had to live, who he had to be.
The Boy swayed back and forth, the back of his hand caressing the softness of his neck. He heard a gasp and turned around to see Sis standing at his bedroom door. “Don’t you knock?” he screamed. The first time the Boy got caught he felt he could get away with it, but this second time seemed like one too many.
Sis took off running and he took off after her but tripped in the high heels and fell to the floor scraping his knee. Blood ran down his shin, staining her Sunday sunflower dress.
Later, Sis was in the kitchen chopping vegetables for a dinner stew when the Boy walked in with his white t-shirt and overalls back on. His head hung low as if a beaten puppy.
“Why do you do that?” she asked. When he drew closer to the kitchen island, he took a deep breath. He wanted to say he loved it, but was that it, exactly? The sentiment felt close but not complete. “It’s strange,” his sister said, still chopping. He nodded. She looked at him, holding the knife in the air. “You’re a boy. And almost fourteen. Stop wearing my clothes or I’ll have to tell Daddy.”
“Tell Daddy what?” asked the brusque voice coming into the house through the back door.
The Boy’s face turned violet. Sis looked at the Boy and then Daddy and said, “Oh, nothing. We were just talking about dinner.”
Their dad stared at the girl a second longer, then nodded. He turned to the Boy. “Ready for afternoon chores?”
The Boy thought about saying, “No.” That he was no longer going to be ready for afternoon chores. That his life was moving in a different direction. But instead, he looked down at the linoleum floor, knowing his place in this world.
With a pitchfork, the Boy dug at one of the haystacks. His callouses throbbed after hours of work, and while there was sharp straw around, constantly poking him, he thought of a different life, one far off into the horizon. He would have to bide his time before he could see the haystacks for what they really were: the early canvas for the rest of his life.
Inspired by Grainstacks by Claude Monet.