Theora

The wind wafted through the corn field sending seeds scattering across the soil; the breeze felt like heaven upon my skin and as I sat, I smiled and I lay back amongst the maize, drifting. It was midsummer so the crops needed watering every half hour or so whilst the sun was still at its hottest. The day had been long and tiring but now the day was slowly drawing to a close meaning that the heat was finally going to become bearable.

I used to lay out here with my mother after a long day in the field and we’d watch the sun disappear behind the hills of Avos, the next town, before slowly heading home for supper. She died two years previous, my mother was one of the unlucky few who had died as a result of pneumonia which had come with one of the worst winters we’d ever endured. My father was left to care for myself and my seven year old brother, Atticus, and he struggled. I was taken out of school to take over from my mother, to keep the wooden hut my father built standing and hospitable.

Food is scarce here, mainly because those on sekta two sell it at such a high price that no one can actually afford to buy it; Atticus would sometimes skip school and venture out into the woods with Patryk to find game that could be sold and the meat left over would be split between the two boys for us to eat. Working as a farmer doesn’t bring in much, my father will earn four harla’s and half a week if he’s lucky; the corn doesn’t sell for much but it sells quickly when it does. We’ve become accustomed to this way of life, it isn’t easy but once there are systems in place, it isn’t hard to adapt or to accept that things, short of a miracle, aren’t likely to change.

Clementine, my village, is split up into four farming sekta’s; sekta one is dairy, sekta two is meat and fur, sekta three is birthing and sekta four is crops. Most sekta’s have about ten or so families living across the land but at the end of the week, we all join together to help bring what we can to the market. That’s how I met Patryk; Ian, his father grows vegetables two fields up from us. It’s just Patryk and Ian; I don’t know what happened to his mother, I’ve never wanted to ask.

Crunching footsteps jolted me back to reality and I stood up quickly; I wasn’t expecting anyone, my father was at the market, setting his stall for the morning and Atticus was helping out Patryk and Ian with their vegetables. I’d stayed behind to start on supper.

“Fara?”

It was Patryk, his familiar smooth voice washed through me like silk “I’m here!”

I waited for just a few moments, listening to his footsteps grow louder before I saw him emerge just ahead of me. “I still don’t understand how you know your way around when the corn is this high” he smiled at me. Patryk, because he spends all day farming, is well toned and tanned with a slim face and highly distinctive cheekbones. There are two things about his appearance that I love, one being his startling blue eyes dazzle me every time I stare into them, reminding me of sapphires and his hair; most farmers wear their hair scalp short but not Patryk who likes to swim against the tide rather than with it, much like me, his hair isn’t ridiculously long but he wears it around his ears. It’s jet black and wild, though that might be because he doesn’t own a comb.

“It’s easy enough to remember when you’re working in it every day.”

I sank back down onto the soil and watched as Patryk flopped down beside me. “Yeah, about that” he sighed “you shouldn’t be in a field, working, that’s mans work.”

“So I should be in front of the hearth with a baby in each arm as I cook?”

He chuckled “no, I didn’t mean that; I just think that you should be in school.”

“What do I need maths and English for when I’m working in a field?” I asked him, taking in his ripped trousers and bare chest which had tanned nicely under the sun, as it does every summer.

“So that you can leave here...get a proper job.”

I shook my head and moved so that I could lay across his lap “no, I couldn’t leave; everything I love is here.”

“Fara, they kill you if you step out of the house after curfew.”