Day 22: The Harvest
For Joshua Conner Moon, the move to the Cotswolds, which he had intended as the beginning of a new chapter in his life, had instead heralded a long period of fruitless toil and slow stagnation, as he grappled with the unfathomable burdens of managing a smallholding, set among the rolling chalk hills of South-West England.
He was greatly alarmed to discover that the vending machines, filled with pre-worn, edible schoolgirl panties, that had crowded the lobby of every apartment building he had ever occupied during his self-imposed exile from the United States of America, and whose contents had sustained him throughout those years, had yet make their way this far west. He had pressed himself up against the mossy drystone wall of the village post office, that opened for three hours every other Tuesday morning, and peered through the small leaded window. Having found the room peculiarly lacking in Japanese vending machines he had walked around the exterior of the locked building no less than three times, reasoning that they must be located outside, perhaps underneath a wooden awning that had once housed stacks of firewood.
“Oh no, Sir. We certainly have nothing of that nature around these parts,” answered a passing farmer.
Moon enquired whether the village shop ever took delivery of the edible delicacy that, in his degenerate state of mind, he referred to as “the breakfast of champions,” regardless of the hour at which the panties were consumed.
“There's a small delivery made around Michaelmas fortnight,” reported the farmer as chewed thoughtfully on a tuft of sheep's wool. “The ladies of the village find that they work well as doilies, to go under the flower arrangements in the church. Only vanilla flavour, mind. None of those fancy green tea or sauerkraut varieties that a man of the world, such as yourself, might find himself becoming accustomed to.”
Moon thanked the man, handing him a small stone for his troubles.
“When is Michaelmas fortnight?” he queried.
“That'd be next Wednesday, Sir.”
~
The farmland that Moon had purchased unsighted, save for a cursory glance at an oil painting of the region as it was during the 1700s, comprised sloping fields, ridged with old plough lines that had cemented themselves into the landscape like the worn down nubs of ancient earthworks. The lichen-scaled boulders strewn around and about a triangular paddock turned out to have once been a part of the crumbling farmhouse that was now his home. Prior to his arrival, the rear of the property had been gradually dismantled by the local men for their night-time games of 'stone toss'. He informed them, one evening in the village pub, of his plans to grow banana peppers, and was laughed out of the place by a jeering chorus of ruddy-faced mockery.
The men had been right. Two banana peppers had pushed their way up through the hard ground. These he solemnly diced, before placing them inside the pickle jar whose contents were to sustain him through the hard English winter.
The land had failed him, or maybe he had failed the land. The village shop could clearly not be relied upon to furnish him with a consistent stream of pre-worn edible panties. The owner of the small business – a menopausal woman named Hilda - had failed to grasp the notion that one might dine upon this delicacy three times daily (with the exception of fasting days) and that an evening meal might consist of no less than four varieties of this underwear, portioned into a starter, a fish course, a main meal, and a dessert.
His gaze travelled through the glassless window of his tumbledown hovel towards the stone pen that housed his largest asset – a cantankerous boar named Ralph.
In the months to follow, slices of cured pork would have to take the place of banana peppers.
It would be a hard thing to kill the pig. Ralph's protective layer of body fat had grown exceptionally thick. The animal had taken a strong dislike to him and would attack him whenever possible.
It would be a sacrifice too: Ralph had proven himself an effective stud, siring offspring with the sow Faith and then, more surprisingly, with the plough-horse, May.
'Still, needs must,' Moon thought, as he unhooked the scythe from its mount over the cold cinders of the empty fireplace. Executing a few practice swings, he made his way out through the weather-worn remains of the green door that hung permanently half-open on rotting hinges.