Olive's Slimy Autumn

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Olive was 130 years old. She was a farmer. Her family had always been farmers. They had always had rolling, endless feilds (field? S?) full of golden corn that tasted like life.

That was her family history.

Then one day.

They noticed the bills. Taxes, that is.

Many

Papers

Of

Sums

They

Owed.

BILL$. To be unsubtle about it.

So they started selling bits of their land. Not all of it, mind you.

Just enough to end meets make. If you what I mean know.

And so.

Years passed, as they tend to do while people are awake.

Every year the bills arrived in little envelopes with sharp corners.

Olive's family would amputate another section of farm, so that the rest of the farm could endure.

The big word. UNTIL:

2008 arrived at the doorstep. In an envelope, one could say. One could say that. It wouldn't be true, but one could say it just the same.

So much of the farm had been sold that it was now 3 feet. 3 Feet of Field. In the middle of the city.

Olive was the last of the family members. She lived in a small box in a corner of the three foot square of grass. There were two corn plants next to her, and one rather sickly chicken.

She harvested corn from the two plants. She sold it. It tastes like coal.

Delicious. She died.

An outhouse now stands where her farm once was. Long live autumn.

Happy days. Seeds. An orchestra.

TIME TIME TIME TIME TIME TIME TIME.