The Farmer

Only one noise pierced through the heavy sound of insects. Sitting upon the stump of a eucalypt, a man was crying. The dying light cast its vale over his fields while black devils feasted upon the remnants of his last loved ones. The ground before him was as dry as a desert. Gazing upon the half-empty bottle in his hand, he thought of the last two years of his life. “What a waste” he mumbled. The bottle, he regarded an everyday item two years ago, now an item of luxury. He stood up, and threw the bottle into the orange sky as hard as he could. Hoping. Wishing. As if by some miracle it might right all the wrongs within his soul. The soft pang of plastic hitting dry, hard ground pulled him back into his depressing reality. He turned back towards the wooden table containing his knife, insecticide, and gun. They taunted him for his failure.


Six months. “Bloody drought” he whispered dryly. Ripping himself from slumber he marched out towards the tractor. The morning greeted him with a cold chill, but he did not take notice. He was deep in thought. How? How does a twelve year old get her filthy little hands on opium? He pondered, furious. It was ironic, he thought... opium farms were doing fine; his farm on its last thirty Litres. Taking a packet of cigarettes from within his pocket, he lit up, and pulled hard. Its soothing embrace calmed him as he reached the giant metallic machine. “Not even fog... not even frost” said the farmer. Wondering if Emily was making breakfast for the kids, his thoughts again came back to the opium he found in his daughters drawer. Mumbling profanities he climbed up onto the tractor and looked around curiously. “It’s looking crook” he stated, starting the tractor. “I’ll be ruined before the year is out.”


Thirteen months. “Bloody drought!” he screamed, bringing his pick down upon the hard ground in one giant spur of animalistic barbarity. His shaking hands still gripped the grounded pick, tears drizzling down his cheeks as he fell to his knees. “I give up...” he said to her. Mary stood awkwardly, girlishly, in the red four-hundred dollar dress. She eased closer to her husband carefully, and started to hug him.


It was the first time he’d ever hit her. Gripping consciousness, she stood, took her shoes off and threw them at the man’s feet. The air was bitter, full of anger, sorrow and hate. The last the farmer heard of his wife was her crying voice, and the crackle of the dry ground under her bare feet as she motioned away. He looked into the clear blue sky, but only saw red. He hated that sky, and that sky hated him.


Seventeen months. “Bloody drought” he said, pulling the trigger upon his fourth last. The crackle of his .308 echoed throughout the perished plains. This one was due in two months, but she couldn’t get up, sickness had taken her into its grasp. Frowning, he picked up the empty shell case, and put it to his temple. He tossed the shell aside and took out his last packet of cigarettes. His dead crops swayed with a calming aura.


Emily won custody. He tried hard not to care; he tried hard to give up on them. “Those bloody children were good for nothing, and Emily is a stupid bitch” he told himself. But he couldn’t lie. He missed his wife’s company, and he missed his kids love. A tear trickled down his jaw as he held his head up looking at the horizon. But his quivering lips caused his cigarette to fall, and he rested his hands on his face, crying uncontrollably.


Twenty months. “Bloody drought”, he cried. Standing over his wooden table with the three ways he could leave this depressing planet. Sweat dripped onto his .308. He picked it up, walked slowly to the dead carcass of his last dehydrated cow and shot a round into it. The crows that were devouring it flew away. He shot again, and again, and again. The pearl white maggots wriggled within the carcass, uncaring about the hot metal shards burning their comrades. His dry lips, shaking hands, and sore red eyes numbed his body like anaesthetics.


Walking back over to the table, he looked at the insecticide and knife. He grabbed the insecticide and looked hard into it. Some leaves had fallen into it, but he didn’t care. He swallowed all of it in one gulp and sat down on the Eucalypt stump, ready to die.
But then he noticed something... Dark clouds were above his head. Almost as soon as he looked up, he felt something on his forehead. He stood up.


Drip.

Drip.

Drop.

He hit the ground hard, when a blue figure came into sight, coming towards the farmer.

Darkness.

Two years. Waking up, he noticed his stomach felt very sore, and saw his neighbour sitting next to him. “Bloody drought”, said the neighbour, who smiled weakly. A woman in a red dress came into the room. She kissed the farmers cheek softly, and for the first time in two years, the farmer smiled.

Made by Luke W. BGS.

Please criticize it/post your own. :)

overall pretty descriptive, and pretty damn good, and i got a HA- for mine in yr11.

the end reminds me of romeo and juilett if thats wat ur going for.

who's ur teacher btw? i finshed at bgs in 02

Mr Howes, pretty good bloke.

tldr

needs more dragons.

pfft, english ... what did it ever do for me? besides easy grades A all the way through baby..

do you still get to teach something for your final oral in year 12? best assignment ever. Brought my bow into school, got stopped by like 6 teachers thinking i was going to tear up the school on a shooting spree only to find out it's for a demonstration hahaha.

Certainly painted a picture. It was good. I got confused (most probably cos I'm tired) where he hit her after she hugged him. I guess I was just waiting for a straight forward - He whispered in his wife's ear while she hugged him "what did the five fingers say to the face?" she said wha... but before she could finish her words he said SLAP and smacked the bitch across the face". And also for some reason skipped your time line where it says 13 months etc. Had to read it again and then i noticed it and the story made more sense hahaha (again probably not your fault just me being tired).

own trap ...

phooks i got a joke for u to use on mr howes

ask him how his first name is spelt, ask "is that Ian with one I or two?"

harsh but funny

It seems kinda messy to keep calling the farmer's rifle a .308 when you could just as easily say rifle. It seems like you're being too specific about something that's very unimportant to the story.

Not a bad effort for grade 11. There are a few grammatical errors and the technique in parts is a little simplistic but the plot was coherent which is a great start at that age.

not bad as said above pretty descriptive I'd say you would get a decent mark for it.

Only one noise pierced through the heavy sound of insects.

What noise was that? Is it the sound of the man crying? If so you should write that sentence more like "The man's crying was the only sound over the sound of the insects".

The dying light cast its vale

Veil.

The ground before him was as dry as a desert.

It is a desert?

He stood up, and threw the bottle into the orange sky as hard as he could. Hoping. Wishing. As if by some miracle it might right all the wrongs within his soul.

This is really confusing. Try and make it all once sentence.

How? How does a twelve year old get her filthy little hands on opium?

What relevance does this have to the plot? Fair enough you have put it in there to make it seem like the farmer's life is hard and he has heaps of problems, but saying that his 12 year old child managed to get a heroine addiction in a rural area is too far fatched imo.

It was ironic, he thought... opium farms were doing fine; his farm on its last thirty Litres.

How is that ironic?

I give up...” he said to her. Mary stood awkwardly, girlishly, in the red four-hundred dollar dress.

Why are we mentioning it is a $400 dress? Aren't they meant to be poor or am I missing something here?

He looked into the clear blue sky, but only saw red.

I like that bit.

Seventeen months. “Bloody drought” he said, pulling the trigger upon his fourth last.

I don't understand this sentence.

Emily won custody. He tried hard not to care; he tried hard to give up on them.

Who is Emily? Isn't the wife's name Mary?

Try and make it flow better I reckon. Condensing the paragraphs and sentences would be a good way to do this.

I liked the story, I kinda thought it would be better if the farmer had of died at the end. Makes it a bit of a tragedy.

He turned back towards the wooden table containing his knife, insecticide, and gun.

Does the word 'containing' fit properly, to me it gives the impression that objects are within something. The knife and whatnot are on the table not in it.

Also, what FPot said, except for the forth last sentences, it made sense to me.

qgl, "we'll mark your homework"

He turned back towards the wooden table bearing the weight of his knife, insecticide, and gun

Yeahhhhh if the farmer died, and then it rained lol, that would be tragic.

the only qgl structure to be seen from space

the great wall of text

I still think the farmer got caught in his own trap. The wife clearly wasn't smart enought to setup the insecticide herself.

bloody drought

Is the bottle half empty or half full?

Here is a story I wrote with a similar theme.

Dry Run

A top secret operation. Scheduled for that night. Only four men assigned to the mission.

Only four, they told them, because the fewer people, the less attention. No operation had been planned tighter than this one. A plain white truck, towing a large cylindrical tank bearing no markings or signs: if anyone else even caught a whiff of the cargo's nature, the mission was already a failure.

Four men, flicking off the safeties on their MP5s, crowded into the unmarked van that followed the truck along a poorly lit, dilapidated road. The driver maintained a distance of about five metres. Steady, constant, dependable. This crew had never lost a truck, and that in itself was a triumph of planning. Yet a chilling inevitability always lurked, like the malaise before the disease.

The mission leader radioed ahead to the truck driver for a standard sit-rep. "Everything's fine," came the less- than-formal reply. He allowed a scowl to creep across his featureless face.

Minutes later, the truck's brake lights flared — two evil, prescient, eyes. The truck shuddered, skidded through a pothole, and tilted up on two wheels. A second pothole completed the damage. The truck flipped on its side and came to rest like a cat sunning itself on warm concrete.

The men, drilled in emotionless response, leapt out of the van to inspect the damage.

Precarious. The truck sat balanced — teetering — atop a one-and-a half-metre embankment. Only a matter of time before the vehicle would plunge. Below sat a more serious problem. Long, sharp pieces of metal stuck up from concrete rubble — the skeleton of an old building long since destroyed, at the base of the embankment.

The men clambered down. A frantic melee. The concrete was firm, heavy. They worked en-masse. Two spikes shifted, thirteen spikes remained. The truck would almost certainly survive the fall to the concrete, but a pierced tank...unthinkable. Sweat ballooned on khaki and speckled the concrete. They redoubled their efforts.

Another spike shifted. A rising cheer. Only twelve more to move.

An insistent whip-crack. The creak of an old mahogany door that hadn't been opened in a decade. A collective groan. A furtive upward glance. Their time was up.

The men retreated a few metres. Nothing to be done now. The truck toppled from the embankment, spikes piercing the metal skin of the tank. It split open like a sausage on a grill.

They shielded their eyes. A relentless stream knocked them flat to the ground. For a brief moment, perhaps, they remembered a time of exploding street fire hydrants and schoolyard water fights, before poisoned rivers and radioactive oceans. They recalled a time when wars were only fought over power, freedom, oil and questionable political agendas.

But those thoughts faded as the water soaked into the dirt and rubble. Tomorrow it would evaporate under a relentless sun. The day after that it would fall as a toxic rain.

last edited by fpot at 14:49:52 14/Mar/08

a writing bouncer? well i never!!!

they are not all brutes you know. only most of them.