B.C (Before Cities)

Short Story: Ron's Love

Ron was always a simple man. He wanted what he could handle, no more and no less. He married young to his first love, and their love was as strong as the pride Ron held for his farm. Never has a man been so grateful for what he has, than Ron. Whenever the sun dipped below the horizon, he'd return inside and take off his hat to see his wife would be waiting for him by the roaring fireplace. Every night, they'd share a mincemeat pie together and hold each other late into the night with a heat that no fire could ever muster. To Ron, this is all he ever wanted. Growing up, Ron didnt know much other than what his father taught him, he was making him into an extension of himself, after all. There is no farm without a farmer, and Ron didn't mind playing that part in the world. His father used to tell him stories as a child that would make him feel many types of ways, stories that took him outside of his farm and into a world he has never seen for himself, but not one story could ever make him feel the way he does when he is with her. Love isn't something that's taught, it is something that is learned. He would tell himself in his toughest times, that he would push himself to do what he could, for her. Every splinter from old tools, every rock he handpicked from the field, every failed harvest, he'd try harder and harder to let her know he'd do it all again and again, for her.
The sun sets time and time again. As it does, Ron begins to see how time can change things. How it is changing him. Every step feels all the more heavier, his arms ache terribly from his work, and the cuts and bruises on his hands take much longer to heal. Ron struggles day in and day out, with no complaint. He loves her, he shouldn't have to worry her with how he feels. Time has made victims of them both, and yet, Ron looks at her and says, "You are just as beautiful as when I first laid eyes on you."

He stays in for the winter, wrapped in her arms and a woolen blanket. A sound of distress from outside, Ron rushes out to see a giant with one of his albino calves in its grasp, half eaten and dripping crimson blood onto the snow. He hastily grabs a harvester and begins swinging it at the giant in an attempt to scare it off. The giant swipes the harvester out of Ron's hands, and knocks him to the side. The farmer struggles to get up, in his old age he isn't as quick as he once was. The giant lifts his hand to squash Ron beneath it, but before it can do so, Ron's wife appears beside him and plunges a pitchfork into the giant's hand. It recoiled in pain and in doing so, flings the Farmer's wife into a tree. The giant makes a hasty retreat, not wanting to have to fight for his meal. When Ron gains enough strength to pick himself off the ground, he hobbles over to her. She isn't moving. He huffs a plume of hot breath and calls her name.
"Beth?"
She isn't breathing.
She lies there deathly still underneath the tree, uninjured and untouched. It's almost like she was sleeping.
She just wasn't strong enough.
Years pass. Ron finds himself in his quaint little cottage after a hard day's work. He takes off his hat and looks to the hearth. He is alone. He takes a seat at their table that has an empty ale mug already sitting on it. Barrels of ale are stacked in the corner of the room, and Ron pops one open with his trusty knife. As he dips the mug into the barrel, his eyes begin to burn. Tears fall solemly into the barrel of ale.
Hours later, Ron sits at that same table with more alcohol than blood in his body. He weeps alone to himself. He wails, he screams to anyone who would listen, crying out her name. He is met with silence.
"I loved you so much, but I still wasn't strong enough to save you."