Old Ticking
Jonathan Greer
The bottle was just short of empty. The bottom glass was dug into the dirt, and the shoulder slope leaned against the man’s thigh. His back was rested against a post planted between two rows of old wheat. Above him loomed his ragged clothes of last summer, now tied to the limbs of a smiling scarecrow.
The man reached for the old ticking just above his head. He picked a piece of hay and broke it.
-Like me.
He drained the bottle.
-Made of hay. Hollow as the sticks that gather together to make a manshape, in the image of God but shy the breath to fill hisself up again. A pile of straws, tubes fashioned to a silhouette is all. A busted crop. A beaten wife. A child too afraid to mutter my name. Just a scarecrow now. Just a perch for a brave bird is all.
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