Yaakov
Source: public/assets/writing/short stories/Yaakov.txt · short stories
Yaakov - James checks his phone. Three sensors offline, northwest quadrant. Same as during dinner. The kitchen table is cleared now. Four plates drying in the rack. Outside, no wind. The wheat doesn't move. Like a photograph of wheat. His truck starts on the second try. November in Iowa. The radio picks up nothing but static this far out, but he never switches it off. Lily always asks him to leave it on. Says she likes the sound, that it sounds like the ocean. ---------- The sensors went dark at 6:47. When Lily was trying to teach Emma the Lord's Prayer. "Our Father, who art in heaven." Emma kept saying "who aren't in heaven" and laughing. Four-year-olds. Grace was always a nice little spot of the day. Lily's turn to lead tonight. Thank you for Mama's good cooking and Daddy's hard work and Emma's new tooth coming in. Her palm sticky against his. Emma reaching across the table for the salt, Sarah guiding her hand away. Emma had always liked the sodium a little too much, just like him. ---------- The truck's headlights sweep across the field. In the back: new sensor posts, posthole digger, hammer. The tarp. Everything secured twice. He's always careful. Measure twice, cut once. Sarah laughs at him. Laughed. Laughs. Would laugh. The field mice are gone. Yesterday there were dozens. He'd noted it in the system: potential pest issue, northwest quadrant. Now nothing. Not even tracks in the dirt. He wasn't complaining. ---------- James parks where he always parks, by the irrigation marker. Somewhere, a fox screams. City people think foxes sound like women screaming. They're not wrong. Gives him the heebie-jeebies. A lot to do tonight. He'll need the tarp. ---------- The first sensor location is easy to find. Nothing there. Just a hole where the post should be. The ground is frozen. Takes effort to drive the new post in. The hammer thunks against metal. Clean sound. The sensor goes in straight. He's good at this. Something on his boot, he scrapes it off on the frosty dirt. He checks his phone. Still red. ---------- At the second location: another hole. Deeper than it should be, maybe 70 inches. The ground here is disturbed, but old-looking. Like it's been that way for months. Years maybe. The new post goes in easier. The earth seems to want it. Sarah had been wearing the blue dress when he left. The one from their anniversary. "Special occasion?" he'd asked. "Just Saturday," she'd said. ---------- The third location is furthest out. He drags the tarp behind him. Heavy. The friction leaves a trail through the frost. Emma's favorite book is about a rabbit family. The daddy rabbit comes home every night to a warm burrow. "Just like you, Daddy." She makes him read it twice. Sometimes three times. The hammer weight feels good. Solid. Real. Thunk. The sound carries. No echo. The post goes in. ---------- He stands back. Checks the phone. Three green dots now. They form a triangle if you draw lines between them. Lily would like that - she's learning shapes in kindergarten. Triangle. Circle. Square. "Which one are you, Daddy?" Square, he'd said. Definitely square. The moon is very bright. ---------- The sensors are recording. Temperature: 27 degrees. Wind speed: 0. Soil moisture: optimal. Everything exactly as it should be. He drags the tarp back to the truck. Lighter now. That makes sense. This time, the truck starts on the first try. ---------- In the rearview mirror, three posts stand in the field. Everything looks like something else at night. Sarah always says that. The coat on the chair becomes a monster. The curtains become ghosts. The radio finds a station. Pastor Williams talking about Abraham and Isaac. How God provided a ram. How faith requires everything but gives back more. James turns it off. ---------- At home, he parks carefully. There are chalk drawings on the driveway. Hopscotch squares numbered 1 through 10, which he gingerly steps around. At home, the porch light is on. Sarah always leaves it on. ---------- Inside, quiet. Which makes sense. He washes his hands twice. Three times. The water runs clear. He checks his phone. All sensors operational. The farm mapped in green light. Every foot accounted for. You can't manage what you can't measure. His father's wisdom. Before GPS. Before precision agriculture. When you had to walk the fields to know them. ---------- Upstairs, three bedroom doors. All closed. He doesn't open them. It was sunday tomorrow. The girls could sleep in. They wouldn't have school. Have had school. Have school. The tense matters. Present continuous. Future perfect. Past indefinite. ---------- In bed, he sets his alarm for 5:00. Same as always. The sheets are cold. Tomorrow he'll check the sensors again. The data will show everything normal. Soil temperature. Moisture. Nitrate levels. Everything the wheat needs to grow. ---------- The moon moves across the sky. Same path every night. Predictable. Measurable. You can set your watch by it. James sleeps. He dreams about sensors. For years, green dots spreading across black. A perfect grid. Everything in its place. Everything accounted for. In the morning, there will be four plates to wash. Four places at the table. He'll make pancakes. It's Sunday. Sarah likes them shaped like hearts, even though he can barely muster them to a proper shape (she says it's endearing). Emma wants rabbits. Lily just wants syrup. Way too much syrup. ---------- Outside, the wheat moves in the wind that finally came. Back and forth, breathing. Like Sarah's hair when she slept. Like Emma's hands waving goodbye from the bus. Like Lily reaching up to be held. Or, he snorted, like wheat in the wind. The sensors watch it all. Note it all down. Miss nothing.