The Air

There was a coffee pot we both once poured from. It knew each our mugs fondly, despite their births from home-kiln. Turn was never taken to fill, the task handled itself. 

Soil as rich as freshly-ground wove together the idylls we procured from this farm. It rained each day to sate the fields, the stock, the wash barrels, the shingles in the roof. The shelves were never empty, same as beds, plates, I could go on.

There was something in the air that summer, leftover from the salty gales of the sea that winter had procured for us. We felt the weave of the earth hug us more snugly. It was a good time.

What it had paid to us, we learned it could usurp. Dull, swiftly-dark evenings brought home fewer visitors, until there was one that made its rounds that we couldn't shake in time. Coughs that rang out like desperate flares in a dark forest. But the bramble proved too thick.

That spring, the oven began to know loaves a tad smaller, and as chores started to skulk into the next day, the sink forgot the pair of mugs as an item, with but one that came round to visit. We saved on the washing, the dry-cleaning, the grocery bill, sure. Prizes we'd have paid a devil's price to refund and reclaim our token.