Silhouette

The sight of a fist moving rapidly towards him was the last thing that he saw before the flash of light blinded him. The next thing that he noticed was the distinct coppery taste of blood in his mouth, quickly followed by the realization that he was laying on the ground. “Get up you worthless sack of shit!” Slowly, the boy rolled over and began to get up on his hands and knees, but just as his belly left the ground, it was greeted with a booted foot. “This all better be done before I come back, or you’ll be wishing I went as easy on you as I did this time, boy!” Without sparing him another glance, the man turned on his heel and left, leaving him sobbing, face down in the dirt. Another beating... This was almost a daily routine now. Work and beatings.

Villagers whispered to each other, because everyone knew what was going on, but in the end, everyone minded their own business. Times were rough, and people had their own troubles. Bandit raids were becoming more and more frequent. As if to add to their plight, the weather had changed for the poorer, and the people of this small farming village were staring right into the eyes of another lean winter that was approaching too quickly. The last harvest was almost upon them, and it did not take a sage to look out into the fields and see that it was not going to be much of a harvest.

Despite his age, the boy took his work seriously, though it was more likely that it was out of fear of the next beating than any sort of sense of duty. He would eat his meals alone in his room which had no more than a make-shift cot of straw in a corner, and a few stubs of candles, and he would rise early in the morning to labor in the fields. The old man would always find a way to be displeased. He ate too much after doing too little work. He worked too slow. He rushed too much and missed some minute and insignificant detail. He started too late, and finished too early; never mind that the sun had gone down an hour before, and he was straightening up the barn by candle light. And each of these things resulted in another beating.

It was another usual evening when things finally turned. The autumn festival was but a few days away, and with it the last of the harvesting for the year. The village would gather to celebrate the last of the “plenty”, and what it boiled down to was simply... more work. Not only were the regular farm chores, but also preparations for the feast, no matter how meager it was going to be this year. The old man went about his normal near-daily routine of scolding and doling out punishment for a job never-well done when something in the boy snapped. Perhaps it was the fall that jarred something loose, or perhaps the vessel in him that held all of the pain and indignity finally overflowed when his body hit the ground from a blow that connected to his ribs. Instead of laying on the ground, he got up feet quickly. With tears streaming down his dirt-smudged face, he got his feet under him, and charged at the old man, small hands calloused by endless toil balled into fists. He screamed as he ran, fear replaced by rage and defiance. “I hate you!” The boy crashed into the old man, pounding on his chest with both hands, perhaps doing more damage with the gesture than with the blows themselves could do to the older and stronger farmer. He swatted the boy away, sending him back some distance and sprawling him out on his back. Light flashed before his eyes as his head hit the hard ground, but after the moment’s daze had passed, he saw the old man standing where he was before, arms crossed over his chest, wearing a grin that made him look like a cat waiting for the mouse to get up so that it could play some more. “Come at me again, you little maggot, and I’ll show you a real hurtin’.” The boy had reached out his hand, trying to grasp something to help himself up. He realized that what he had grabbed onto was the pitchfork that he had been using to bale hay. Without thinking, he changed his grip and charged at the old man again, an incoherent scream issued like a battle cry.

It was dark outside when he opened his eyes again, and he realized that he was still in the barn, but something was strange. There were a few small candles lit giving the place a little bit of light. He saw a pitchfork sticking out of the ground, casting shadows that danced all around him some distance from where he was propped up against a bale, with the old man sitting next to him. He stirred, and realized that the warm weight on his shoulders was the old man’s arm. “Do you know how long I’ve waited for this, boy? Do you?” The farmer’s voice was, for the first time in the boy’s memory, without malice. “It will be ten years this winter. And not once did you try to stand up for yourself. I don’t know what else I would have to do to you to get that fire lit.” He did not look at the boy as he spoke, but just stared out into the distance, out at the dark silhouettes of trees against a star-lit sky. “I had begun to wonder if this son of mine would never grow into a man worth his balls. Now you’re on your way to being a man. And it’s about time. My son.”