Imprinted
Shadows tell stories.
A vignette written to the picture prompt shown.
The ground is hard, stone-like. It feels as unchanging as granite. His boots make no imprint, as if the land rejects the passage of human feet.
But the long shadows of the winter sunset tell another story. The small ripples, the larger, deeper ones: planter, plough, last year’s, the year before, going back centuries, the work of generations of hands, hooves, wheels; ploughshares of wood, iron, steel.
If he walked these fields with a metal detector what would he find? Nuts and bolts shaken loose. Horseshoes and nails. Tobacco tins. Coins, with the Queen’s face, or King William’s, or King Alfred’s. A cloak clasp lost by a Roman soldier. The earring his wife lost, walking out with his lunch earlier this year.
A hare, startled, jinks across the field. Red-legged partridge chitter and scurry. The hare’s ancestor was here before the Romans came. The partridge are new; new in the way this farm measures time, at least. Newer than the pheasants; older than the muntjak feeding near the trees.
His first memory is of riding on his grandfather’s shoulders, the old man walking down the lane to the paddock where his beloved shire horses grazed. Old animals then, but good workers during the war, when gasoline for truck and tractor was rationed. Horses and man long gone now, but remembered, like some of the stories told on those walks, memories of a farm boy from when the 19th century turned into the 20th. Tales, too, of that boy’s ancient grandfather, telling of a rider shouting word of a victory against Bonaparte.
In his pocket is a letter; in that letter, an offer of a job. Managing a farm, an ocean away. Arable, grain and hay, much what he farms here. But fewer worries. A salary, benefits, a pension. The Queen’s face still on the money.
But no red-legged partridge, here for only three centuries. No Saxon coin found from its gleam among the stones on the field’s surface. No Roman ring, picked from the soil a mole kicked up, burrowing. No hare, creature of moonlight and myth.
No stories, stretching back nearly two centuries. No memories imprinted in the soil.
He pulls the letter from his pocket, reads it again. Looks again at what the shadows reveal, before he tears the words and the paper into tiny pieces and lets them fall.
Happy New Year, everyone! May 2026 bring you peace and contentment.
Another free book promotion to Feb 2, 2026. It includes a prequel story that introduces the fictional world of Empire’s Legacy.
Find all my books, including my short story and verse collection Beyond the Wall, here.
or
(e-books of the Empire’s Legacy series only): https://scarletferret.com/authors/marian-l-thorpe
Such a satisfying story.