By Ryan Rahman
Nobody remembers when the fields first went dry.
Or maybe they do. Maybe they’d rather avoid the subject altogether. The ones who lived long enough to witness it say the soil just gave up. The priest says this is a test of our strength. Of our faith.
But even the mice have left, and they used to eat anything they could find.
Last night, the stars were absent from the sky.
The moon remained concealed behind the clouds. Lightning shattered the horizon like glass, illuminating the black. A storm stirred beyond the hills. The ground trembled as the dogs barked. Then everything went quiet. Even the wind stopped blowing.
This morning, nothing moved.
The October air was still in a way that didn’t feel natural. No birds. The livestock kept stirring and shuffling, as if they knew something we didn’t. And across the fields, everyone was just standing there. Staring. Not saying anything to one another.
My wife squeezed my hand. My children stood behind me, silent.
And suddenly, he arrived.
He didn’t walk out of the woods or down the road—he was just there. Cloaked in black, threaded with starlight. Now I knew where the stars went from the night before. Where a face should’ve been, there was only darkness. A void. The blade of his scythe still gleamed under the sunless sky.
He wasn’t alone.
A baker, blacksmith, merchant, midwife, scribe, and seamstress all followed behind him. Their faces looked like wax left too close to an open flame. I wondered how they lived, how they thought their lives would end. If they even gave any thought to it at all.
I wanted to run, but my feet were one with the earth.
And then I said something.
I don’t know why.
“Wait,” I said. Quiet. Like I’d interrupted a conversation I hadn’t been part of.
“Please. Just listen.”
He stopped. The procession behind him stopped too. His hood turned, just a little.
Like he heard me.
No one else moved. No one else breathed.
I looked at my wife. My children.
I tried to remember the better times. When the yield was abundant.
“It’ll be better next season. We’ve prayed. Believe me, we’ve prayed. Things will change. I do believe that. I still have faith. We can turn it around. We just need a little more time. We—”
It sounded better in my head.
I had more to say, but none of it made sense anymore.
Even to me.
“One more season. That’s all we need.”
He didn’t say anything.
I wanted to cry but didn’t. I pushed it down. Not now.
Not in front of them.
He reached out to me. His hand touched my arm. Gentle but cold. Not the kind of cold that comes with autumn.
Something else entirely.
My knees gave out and when I looked down, my boots were half-swallowed already. The mud grabbed at them like it had fingers.
The priest crossed himself. The oxen stood like statues. The sheep no longer bleated.
Then the church bell rang.
Once. Then again. And again. Each toll sounded further than the last.
We left the field.
The line behind him grew even longer. I recognized some of the faces.
The wind picked up as we huddled together for warmth. The harvest failed long before he came. We were already gone. Just passing time until his arrival.
The bell fell silent. The fields behind us stayed empty, waiting for someone else to try again one day.
I keep my family close to me as we march onward. I hear the voice of my dead mother and father.
It could just be the wind.
But I don’t think it is.
