Thursday Flash!

A Shortcut Home

Until the sky went red and flat with dust, the boy had looked for Henry, walked the farm out to the dirt road and down along the Pattersons' alfalfa field and back. Now he quit the road and cut through high grass back home. When he came to the fence that lined the cornfields, he stopped and scanned the stalks for the crumpled outline of his grandfather's black hat. He saw it poking from the center of the field, unmoving—crumpled flannel arms too, winged out between the husks. The boy whistled and called out to Henry once more, but the stalks didn't rustle nor the grass behind him. Only grasshoppers rattled back, carving out a place in the silence. He ducked under the top wrung of the fence and entered the cornfield. Though he tried to stay along the outskirts, he still happened upon it without warning—first the hat came into view against the dim light of the sky, then the torn burlap face. The boy stopped and looked back at the long path he'd already cut through the fields and thought about running, but two loud caws rang out behind him and he turned back to look at the figure. A group of crows hobbled across its arms. One without an eye pecked at his grandfather's hat. They laughed across the cornhusks, perched on the figure like old friends, fearless, dancing across its shoulders. Another two rushed up out of the stalks in front of the boy and flapped down alongside the other crows. The eyeless one dove down into the stalks. The others laughed. When it came up again, it was chewing something red. The crows took turns diving from the figure, jostling the stalks along the boy's path. They laughed and chewed. The boy reached down, found a rock in the cracked dirt and threw it at the figure. The rock bounced off its chest and scattered the crows and as they flew away a hard silence crept over the field. Even the grasshoppers stopped rattling and no wind moved along the grounds to whisper through the corn. The boy looked at the uncut path in front of him, too afraid to pass. He turned away from the darkening figure, the darkening fields and ran back down the path he'd come by. He ran in silence and when he returned to the road he gave up calling for Henry.