Harry Hogg
Aug 26, 2017 · 4 min read

Photo Prompt: pic graciously offered by Jim Reeves.

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The Stranger

The cottage, isolated, nestling on the prairie, is where Mathew has lived for fifty-two years, a week after he married, before two children had grown, before the graying of hair, the buckle in his spine, and needing a stick to walk out.

Mathew, well he didn’t need too much. He pitied people that lived in the cities. His had been a wide prairie land way of life.

Standing at the kitchen window, lifting a mug to his lips, he sips at coffee and smiles.

The prairie sings with the sounds of a summer, speaking of space, openness, the freedom to live and breathe, and dressing the grasses under infinite prairie skies. Mathew no longer has to struggle with thinking about which month it is, he only has to glance out the window and see the date written on the land or in the trees, or hear it announced by the song of the meadowlark.

But, this morning, Mathew smells rain in the air as the breeze sifts through the open window bringing onward threatening clouds. Lately, the days have been hot and heavy.

The prairie does not tug on romanticism the way the Rockies do, or the sea. The prairie is mostly quiet, gentle, shamelessly flaunting her beauty as if wearing a Parisian bonnet.

With mug in hand, Mathew moves to the porch, settling into the swing, listening for those first rumblings of thunder coming in the distance, the long groaning rumble, heavy with mischief, and eventually ceasing the songs of birds.

Mathew has always loved summer storms, being in the thick of things when the weather swept in across the plains. It inspired him. To understand the praire one must first understand extremes; nature’s potency.

From the porch Mathew watches the wonder of nature without the interruption of buildings, traffic signals, semi-trucks passing. Time was he’d sit out here with Audrey, his once wife, Thunder is the song of the Heavens, he always told her, but Audrey was less than enthusiastic, preferring to stay close to the oven, comforting Bonnie, their old Labrador when those rumblings meandered menacingly over the prairie plains.

This morning’s heat is oppressive. He figures the storm is still about ten miles away. It has been a difficult night. Mathew felt pain in his right arm.

Out the corner of his eye, walking through the gate, a lone figure approaches the porch. Is this man looking for shelter? Only a mad man will venture into the open knowing the expected storm is close.

Mathew doesn’t feel well enough to stand and greet the stranger.

Morning to you, The stranger says, and keeps coming. Looks like it will be a good show, a laugh in his voice.

You’re far from town, young man, Mathew says.

I have my reasons, the stranger replies. Could I by chance sit with you awhile, till the storm passes?

Mathew nods, dragging a chair closer. I’m Mathew.

Peter, and the stranger reaches out a hand. Mathew took its strength into his. It’s beautiful. Have you always lived here?

Mathew nods his satisfaction. Never wanted to live anywhere else. You live close?

Peter slumps his body into the rocker. No, Mathew. I’ve come a long way.

When the stranger doesn’t elaborate, Mathew doesn’t intrude. He doesn’t care where the man has come from. It’s nice to have company. It’s the only thing which he is short this past year, good company. If the man doesn’t want to talk, that’s fine. Sometimes Mathew and his wife sat a long while and never said anything. Never much need to. She died right here on the porch.

The storm breaks with a fury. Mathew has never seen its magnitude before. The lightning separating the sky from the heavens, the thunder a constant music. In eighty-seven years Mathew has never seen this kind of beauty attached to a storm, and no doubt ever see the like again. Throughout the whole thing the stranger never speaks a word.

As the flashes get farther apart and the rumbles grow faint, Mathew stands, leaning against the porch fence.

I think that’s it, Mathew. Time we should be moving along.

Mathew looks into the man’s eyes. Is this someone he should recognize? Something deep in the stranger’s eyes tells him all he needs to know.

The stranger is right. It’s time to go, and in his heart, Mathew knows he is ready for the greater prairie.

We going to follow that storm? Mathew says.

For a while, Mathew. For a while.

)

Harry Hogg

Written by

Harry Hogg is a pseudonym. I was born in London, lived my youth on an island off the west coast of Scotland and now live part time in California.

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