Labour of Love

(Entry for a Beating the Block contest where the first line was given.)

Labour of Love

The heavy bags strained against his back as he heaved them through the field, sweating and grunting with the strain.

Halfway up the hill, his arms grew tired of dragging, so he tried carrying the sacks over his shoulders. Although he fought fatigue with curses, the weight became too much for him. His progress slackening, his forearms giving up, he lowered the bags carefully onto the stubble of the mown cornfield.

Then he slumped forwards to his knees and rolled to his back. His heart was drumming, pounding with the effort. *It wasn’t meant to be done in such a hurry.*

He stretched out his arms and legs, stared to the heavens, but diverted his gaze from the blazing sun. The deep red scar across his cheek, hot in the coolest weather, was searing. The furrows in his brow sluiced streams of sweat to sting his eyes. The fresh cuts itched, the shoulders shrieked, the feet were swollen beyond their shoes.

So heavy were his limbs it took this man a moment to call, and lift, and summon enough willpower that he could move his watch into a line of sight. Ten past noon, he could relax for a moment with the thought that he could not relax: *Have to be back in twenty minutes, latest.* The sun was incessant.

He gave shade to his eyes by resting a scarred and bloody arm upon his forehead. From this asylum, he panted over and over, counting his heaving breaths that he could gauge the passing time.

And the time passed. Until it was beyond. Like the shock of a new morning, he remembered himself, he took one deep breath, and forced himself to collect the strength to lift his body back to its feet.

The sun was hot today: *About fifteen million degrees on the surface.*

The air was heavy, the earth dry, brittle and difficult to walk on. He was a very unfit man.

He really wanted a cigarette: *But I think that’d kill me.*

His shirt was open down to his flabby belly and perspiration adhered it to his stout arms and thick neck. Every movement unravelled the stitching and chafed the cheap abrasive saturated cotton against his gelatinous skin.

Leaning over, the fat sweating man grabbed both sacks, coiling their necks around his fists, and set off again, leaning forwards, using his weight to lessen the stress on his arms. *How far is that gate? Must be two hundred yards, that’s the next break.*

As he ploughed on up the hill, some rabbits played amongst the dry yellow stalks; a murder of scavenging crows, alarmed, scattered into the sky, where their black forms circled like vultures and their caws resounded like cries of the damned through the otherwise pastoral silence.

His arms burning with the strain, his feet unsteady on the uneven soil, he hung his head down, and as he stumbled on, he traced the moving ground between his feet: Every now and then a splinter of an old bottle or a flattened tin flashed by amongst the boulders and the earth. *Might find myself an old arrowhead, if I knew what to look for.*

He made slow progress as he heaved toward the summit, but finally he struggled to the gate and paused again.

Leaning heavily against the wooden post that held the gate, the man gorged on gulps of warm but fetid air. *Really want a smoke.*

The fragrant scents of honeysuckle and foxglove, so rich where he had come from were rendered neutral here by the immediate stench of decay. He looked straight at it, pondering the clean white teeth jutting upwards from a matted grey body. It was, he observed, filled with writhing maggots. The body of a short-dead rat. His consciousness identified death only after moments of staring, so desensitised had he become this day. He wiped his brow and looked away.

He stared back down the hill to review his progress and then surveyed beyond the gate to assess what lay ahead. The burning heat, the loneliness, the infernal weight, but still, he told himself, he was halfway there.

The sun was so intense. Under her matronly gaze, he was an anomaly. Birds glided airily through the cloudless sky, butterflies flitted past, flowers bloomed in the hedgerows for the last of the season’s bees. He sighed deeply, shaking his head: *This is a fine undertaking.*

He knew he would have to examine the bags. He had to make sure they weren’t leaking. He turned them over and rubbed away the dry earth they had collected. It was immediately apparent that the friction had frayed the threads, and with dismay he swept away the remaining grit. Black plastic was visible through the fibres of each bag, but there was no discernable smell or bleeding.

He dusted his palms on his shirt, and for the first time considered his wounds: A filigree of fresh scratches weaved through the skin of his hands and forearms. Bloody scars were witnesses to his work. His fingers were crimson ochre. The cochineal sludge under his nails recalled his days in the slaughterhouse. He cursed aloud that he did not wear the gloves he had bought for the purpose. *All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten these ugly great hands.*

He put such thoughts behind him, and although he told himself it was a newfound strength, it was in actuality an easier descent, for the sun shrouded herself behind a cloud and the camber favoured the labourer; the load lightened and the task eased. He established a rhythm, only occasionally interrupted in an awkward stumble over a deep tyre-track or when a bag snagged on a thick corn stalk.

From a distant field he heard the drone of a tractor at work, and closer, a cow moaned and keened a terrible whooping-cough bray. *A farmer must have slain her calf.*

Now he heard the sound of a familiar vehicle: *That’s Seth, got to hurry.*

He stepped up the pace, stumbling and staggering through the field, the sacks twisting and hopping behind him. The scar on his cheek burned deep red. The sun beat down relentlessly. *Hot as hell*

*It was my own fault, I could have been much earlier. She had to argue with me, she had to! She refused to help when I needed her! And now I’m all on my own…*

He soon found himself within range of his goal, but with dying resources. It seemed that the right bag was heaver than the left; he rested to swap hands. It made a difference, but not for long, and soon his right arm began to scream again. *Instead of the cross, the albatross about my neck was hung.*

He realised that the pause had given the relief, and that the bags were equal weight. He was simply left-handed: *Sinister by nature.*

The left bag began to wound. A purple bruise betrayed a weakness within and deep red fluids began to leak without. He picked up the bag, and carried it from here upon his shoulder.

There was a slight uphill at the end of the field and his body gasped and buckled as he laboured onwards. He could soon see the house, he hoped. He could soon see the house, he told himself. And then, he could see the house. And to his relief, Seth’s car was still there.

He paused and contemplated the climb. The path through the garden was steep. *I’ve brought them this far…* His fists fused closed around the bags, one dragged, one upon the shoulder, and he called on all his remaining reservoirs of strength to ascend the path through the garden to the house.

Staggering, breathless, sweating and confused, he made it. Leaving the bags beside Seth's long black car, he rolled down his sleeves. He mopped his brow and buttoned up his shirt, opening the back door to the kitchen.

“Seth!” he gasped.

“There you are! We thought you were dead! I was just about to go. This is last minute stuff here, everything is ready. I told you it has to be today.”

“I’m nearly dead. I need a drink.” He lit a cigarette. The sweat had returned to his brow, and streamed even more profusely than before. He wiped it away, taking in a long deep breath of sweet tobacco. The cigarette brought a stabbing pain to his chest.

Maisie handed him a glass of homemade lemonade. “Are you OK? You look terrible.”

Seth interrupted, his smile dissolving. “Did you get it done?”

“Sacks, out by the car, top of the path.”

“How many sacks?”

“Two. Both very full. You’ve got it all ahead of you now. You’re the expert from here, Seth, it's in your hands now. It better be worth all this.”

With the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth he ceremoniously peeled back his sleeves. His wounds were met with gasps from Seth and Maisie.

“Why didn’t you wear the gloves?” said Maisie, “I told you to bring the gloves!”

“I know, I know. As I said, it better be worth it, Seth.”

---oooOOOooo---

The following Winter, he again rolled back his sleeves and tried to find some scars, pointing them out to his visitors, as a proof of his involvement. A badge of honour, evidence of what he considered bravery and endurance.

The cabal of visitors slaked back the thick black-red nectar and it drooled down their chins as they celebrated its pedigree in salacious pleasure. It was Seth's best work to date.

Timmy recounted again how he thought he would die dragging the bags through the fields on that scorching Autumn day.

The visitors raised their glasses and the toast went up: “To Timmy and Maisie! Happy twenty-fifth wedding anniversary!”.

Timmy grinned widely, shaking his head: *My son Seth makes fantastic blackberry wine!*