Day 4 – NaBloPoMo
A Journal Entry from a Scarecrow on a Full Moon
I don’t typically write fiction. Please be gentle. 🙂
Saturday, November 4th, 2017 10:29 p.m.
The full moon rose last evening, shining bright on this early November night. It cast my long shadow as the breeze rustled through the scattered remnants of this harvested cornfield. The combine went through several weeks ago, kicking up dust in it’s path and over the two lane county road. Several days ago, from a distance, the farmhouse was all aglow with Halloween spirit. Neighbors are sparse out here, so the kids likely went into town for tricks and treats. Little do they know of what happens on Halloween night, out here in the wide open darkness.
After the last candy-stuffed child is put in their bed and the last farmer retires for the night after watching the sun set across his field from his wooden porch with a nightcap, shadows begin to emerge from the treeline. They dance single file along the perimeter as they make their way out of the woods, hundreds of them. The line coils itself around and around until I’m surrounded, in the middle of the field, with rows of dancing shadows, shifting into different shapes and silhouettes. Some carry glowing jack-o-lanterns, some do not. This past Halloween just a few nights ago was an incredible sight, the field filled with dancing shadows under a clear, black sky dotted with thousands of stars. The moon shone down on this parade as it has for many, many years, long before I was assembled, and will continue for many years after I’m replaced. After a while, the line began to move in the opposite direction, filling the woods as again they danced their way back to where they came from, wherever that may be.
I don’t know if I’ll spend the winter here or I’ll they’ll put me in the barn until spring, when I’m rehung in the fields stuffed with fresh hay and perhaps some not-so-worn clothes. Either way is fine with me. Stretched out on the hay bales, the barn cats curl up on me at night, taking shelter from the winter wind (one had kittens on me one year, thanks cat!) or I may hang in the field until the white blanket of snow melts and the acres of earth start to emerge.
Sometimes, the shadows return on a full moon. They have in the past. I’ll just wait, fluttering in this chilly November breeze, and see what emerges from the woods.