Susan

EDIT: ~2700 words

EDIT 2: BTW, this story does not contain any animals or kids! There's hope for me yet? *G*

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With a tiny shake of his head, Tom dropped the half-shucked ear of corn on the table in front of his wife. It landed with the resounding thud of the family’s falling fortunes.

“It’s all like this. Or worse.”

His wife looked down despairingly. “What are we going to do?”

“If we don’t get in a decent crop by this time next year, we’re gonna lose it all, Anna. And our neighbors and friends are all in the same pickle.”

“All except young Ramy,” Anna reminded softly.

Ramy. Every other field around was more yellow than green, the crops struggling to wrest life drop by drop from the parched earth. All except for Ramy’s. The deep lush green of his fields shone like an oasis in the desert of drought that gripped the countryside.

[This message has been edited by shadowynd (edited July 20, 2004).]

When I saw the topic title / story title, I immediately thought of Stephen King for a few reasons. First, "The Shining," (red-rum) for RED and BLOOD (elevator scene in movie), but also thought of the TV movie "Rose Red." Then, of course, "The Green Mile" for GREEN and lastly, CORN: "Children of the Corn."

This is a title that came into my head out of the blue, as it were, (pardon the colour puns) upon seeing the lush green corn fields and a few yellow scraggly ones in the surrounding countryside. We are in a drought of some 5-8 years here, depending on who you talk to. Here, btw, is Wyoming & Nebraska, USA.