Last Flight Out

 Last Flight Out

As the afternoon sun slides toward the west, another weary day fades into the horizon, mirroring the slow end of this year, slipping through my fingers like sand in an hourglass. The chill of the late afternoon bites deeper, a cruel reminder of the despair surrounding me. Once a fiery beacon, the sun paints the sky with melancholic hues, casting a somber glow on my worn-out farm.

The crows, harbingers of change, flee to warmer climes, sending their subtle message to me. Leaning against my weathered Ford pickup, I confront the harsh reality of our family’s legacy crumbling before my eyes. Three generations worked this land, yet I stand alone, shouldering the burden of decades of toil and lost hope.

We bartered our birthright to appease the insatiable hunger of the mega-corporate farms, sacrificing pieces of our heritage for fleeting solace. Now, I cling to fragments of a fading dream suffocated by the weight of debts and broken promises. The land I once nurtured now overwhelms me, stretching beyond my grasp like an endless expanse of desolation.

The grain elevators stand as monuments to false hope, their silos brimming with the fruits of my labor yet yielding no respite from the relentless march of poverty. My trusty John Deere, a relic of simpler times, lies dormant in the shed, a silent witness to my unraveling.

I yearn for salvation, for a reprieve from this ceaseless struggle, but hope is a fragile commodity in this unforgiving landscape. Borrowing against the future yet again seems my only recourse, a desperate gamble in a game rigged against me. The cycle of despair tightens its grip, dragging me inexorably towards oblivion.

I never envisioned myself as the one to give up and lose the family farm, yet here I stand, ready to board the last flight out, leaving behind the remnants of a life once lived. In the twilight of my existence, I am but a ghost haunting the ruins of a lost dream.