The Old Man and the Crow

The creaking of the windmill and the gurgling water are the only constant sounds on the farm now long abandoned. When the wind blows the windmill turns, independent of man, a machine dependent on nobody, only the wind for propulsion and the bright yellow self-seeding sun flowers for companionship. I come here often in the summer to sit and watch the windmill and to escape the heat of the city and the constant wail of sirens. I don’t think I will ever get used to the sirens, no matter how long I live in the city. Every time I hear them I can't help but think of all the awful things that could be happening, children caught in burning buildings, someone’s grandmother having a heart attack, a car accident where no one survives but they send the ambulance anyway to bring in the dead.

So I come out here to the windmill and sit by the river and look at the sunflowers, the golden wheat, the wild flowers and I lay back in the grass and listing to the silence of the country, birds, wind, heat, and the creaking of the windmill. My eyes close, heat on my lids, and summer in my breath. I wake suddenly, not from any sound but from the silence of someone near. An old man is standing over me, his gray beard hanging down in wisps, his eyes narrowed, gnarled hands clutched around his walking stick. I sit up and look at him, fearful in this empty place. He is muttering “city folk, littering up the country side, and foreigners to, what is the world coming to, once my grandfather owned all this land, wouldn’t to have put up with loiterers” he turns and stomps off limping determinedly. I watch him leave, a single crow flying after him, silently in the hot summer air.

I stop at the little pub, waylaying the hour when I must board the train back to the noise and filth of the city. The bar tender leans an elbow on the counter polishing a glass. “So, little miss, how was your walk today” he asks, the same words that have accompanied the same gesture for six months of weekends. “Well, I met a man, or didn’t meet him rather came across him, or he came across me". I feel confused suddenly and wondering if I had seen him at all. “Old man with a limp, a cane and a crow?” He says pausing in his work. I nod. “Ah” he says a slow smile crossing his ruddy face. “The Grouch, as we call him around here, transient fellow, maybe missing a few screws so to speak but harmless, his family used to own all this land around here, owned the town too, still do but he is the only one left and well, its all gone wild now". The bar tender straightens up "what can I do you for little miss” he asks “the usual?” Before I can answer he pulls the tap and fills the polished glass with a light pilsner. “So that man owns all this land" I ask puzzled by the story “yup, owns the town to, some folks thinks he’s not crazy at all but just some sort of a loner, though I think he’s not quite right in the head myself, knew his grandfather though, a man like you’ve never seen before". "I was just a kid then" he continues "and my pa was running this joint, old man used to sit right there where your sitting and the whole bar would be hanging on his every word”.

The door creeks open and sun light slides across the dim floor of the bar, a young couple enter, sleek and well dressed “enjoy your beer miss” he says raping his knuckles on the bar, he turns to the customers, throwing a wink back in my direction. I slide of the bar stool and, leaving a few bills on the counter, slip out into the sun shine. The evening train is approaching, its whistle sounding in the still afternoon air.