Light Over the Field

We had been in the sheds after the storm, waiting to see if the rows would hold. When we came out the field was dark in the ordinary way, and then it was not. There was a column of light in the middle of the far plot, tall as a silo and still. It did not flicker. It did not hum. It was the color of old gold, the way the air looks if you look through honey.

D. said we should go back inside. J. was already walking. I went because I did not want him to go alone. Up close it was like looking at the bottom of a river of light. You could see the plants inside it, every vein. It was not hot. It did not throw a shadow the way a lamp does. I put my hand toward it and D. said my name the way you do when a person is about to be foolish, so I did not touch it.

It lasted eleven minutes. J. timed it on his phone, which is why I can say that. When it went it went all at once, like a held breath let out. J. laughed, not because it was funny. D. sat down between the rows. I felt as if I had been forgiven for something I had not done.

We told Pastor R. the next Sunday because we did not know who else would not make it smaller. He said write it down before you agree on a story. We wrote it separately. The letters are much the same.