The Farm

Jeremy puts down his spoon into the half full bowl of milk and a couple of floating corn flakes as the doorbell rings. He pushes his chair back from the kitchen table and looks at his watch and murmurs,

“2:25 on a Tuesday afternoon?”

The doorbell rings again and Jeremy grunts to his feet plucking a soggy cornflake from the corner of his teeth. Socks padding on carpeted hardwood, he finally makes it to the front door irritated from being pulled out of his calm midday cereal.

The doorbell rings a third time as Jeremy opens the door to lock eyes with a smiling man pressing his finger to the bell.

“Oh, sorry,” the man pulls his hand back and smooths out his wrinkled white button up shirt and makes a feeble attempt at straightening his askew black tie. He has short black slick back hair, black slacks, and a backpack on. If anyone looked like a door to door salesman, it was this man.

“Yes?” Jeremy keeps the door open just over a foot.

“Yes, hello, sorry to bother you,” the man starts, “I sent you a number of emails over the past weeks. I am the historian, the one researching our family tree?”

“Ah,” Jeremy relaxes a bit but does not open the door anymore. He had received two or three emails and a couple missed calls from this guy. He was studying their family tree and wanted to hash out some details. Jeremy had not returned any of his emails or phone calls.

“Right, right. Sorry about that man. The historian, right?”

“Yep! Mind if I come in? It won’t take more than ten minutes, I promise.”

Jeremey hesitates for a moment. A rolodex of social anxiety, fear of a scam or MLM offer run through his head in an instant.

“Sure, come on in,” Jeremy sighs and backs up, opening the door.

The historian walks in and inhales deeply, seeming to smell the house then turns to Jermey with a smirk, gesturing to the kitchen table.

“Shall we sit? Only ten minutes, promise.”

Jeremy closes the door knowing it will not be ten minutes and holds his arm out as if to say, ‘after you.’

The two men sit at the short, square table and the historian moves the bowl of milk to the side and Jeremy follows the movement with his eyes.

“Now,” the historian drops his backpack to the floor, unzips it and pulls out a binder with various crumpled papers, clippings, and objects stuffed inside of it. Plopping it on the table and opening it to a random place, he starts.

“Your last name,” he begins, “I mean, our last name: Derrige, used to be McDerrige back in the day. Way back, way, way back, Theodorre and Abigail McDerrige were our great, great, great grandparents, you know that, right?”

“Uhm, yeah. My mom told us about them a few times I think. I also knew about the name change. How they dropped the ‘Mc’ part.”

“Yes, right. Well, did you know that they were two of about ten founding members of an offshoot of the Christian church known as The Farmers?”

“No,” Jeremy squints, “are you sure about this?”

“Oh, absolutely! They started this little side thing with a few others who believed that we, well, they were warriors of god. That believing, and singing, and praising the gospel was all well and good but that at some point, there would come a time when a holy army would be called upon to fight for god and everything.

“I’m getting ahead of myself. I think I mentioned in my emails that Theodorre and Abigail had nine children and of those nine, five lived on to adulthood and four had children. Two of those kids grew up, got married to have our grandparents and then,” the historian flips through the folded pages of the binder and a few newspaper clippings slide out onto the table.

“Yeah, I know all this. I read the email. So did my sister and my mom. They talked to me about it also. Was there something you needed from me?” Jeremy leans back and crosses his arms, beginning to drop his already thin veil of hospitality.

The historian stops his chaotic flipping and looks up, smiles, and blinks slow.

“Yes, of course you already know all this. Here,” he thumps the binder closed as a few yellow photos pop out of it, “let me get to the point.”

“You see, this offshoot spiritual army church that was started back then, they had this tactic, this method for creating the warriors for god without being detected by others. By agents of the devil as they would put it. They called themselves The Farmers because they were to sew the seeds and work the soil that would one day bear the fruit of change for the new world.

“One of the founding members of The Farmers worked as a hypnotist with a traveling Czech circus who settled in America and joined The Farmers. Together, they developed a song that the members would sing to their children, a lullaby if you will, that would put them into a hypnotic suggestive state once a triggering phrase was spoken. Their goal was to turn their own children into sleeper agents that could be called upon, activated, at any point in the future when they would need their soldiers.”

Jeremy sits more upright in his chair and reaches in his pocket for his phone, a prickling nervousness bubbling up inside him.

“This was the perfect method for their holy soldiers of the new world because their own children would have no idea that they were being trained to become the front line of the new army!”

Jeremy’s eyes flick to the far wall where a large white cross hangs over the fireplace. I thick, cold snaking out of his chest.

“You see,” the historian continues, “Abigail, her daughter, and so on, they all sang this lullaby to their children. Planting this suggestive state deep within their subconscious. Waiting to be harvested when they were called upon!”

“Look man,” Jeremy pushes his chair back and stands up at the table, “your ten minutes are up. What does any of this have to do with me?”

He notices as he gestures that his hands are trembling.

“Sure, sure,” the historian stands up slowly to meet Jeremy’s eyes, “I am guessing you mom sang you a lullaby when you were a child, yes?”

Jeremy furrows his brow and nods once.

“I am also guessing that you sing this same lullaby to your children, correct?”

Jeremy narrows his eyes and nods again.

“Was it one about planting flowers in the light of god that would one day sprout and bloom to cover all that man has built upon this land?”

Jeremy stops nodding but the historian knows he is on it.

“And you read this lullaby to your little one too.” The historian does not ask this but says it as a matter of fact.

Jeremy reaches into his pocket, pulling out his phone and the historian sees this and speaks,

“The marigolds are in bloom, Farmer!”

Jeremy stops with his phone halfway out of his pocket, his shoulders drop, his eye lids lower, and he exhales. He drops the phone back into his pocket and stands still and silent as a statue.

The historian produces two marigolds from his trouser pocket and tucks one behind Jeremy's ear, gliding fingertips down his cheek.

“I’m sorry to do this to you cousin, it was not my intention. We are both the warrior children of god.”

The historian puts the other flower behind his own ear and gently pets his own cheek. He looks back to Jeremy with half closed eyes full of affection and says,

“I only told you of our family history so you understand. I wanted to show you the power and responsibility that has been bestowed upon us. It is time to get the family together, it is time to go back to the farm, Jeremy.”

Jeremy remains standing with a glazed stare into space for a long time, the soundlessness electric. Until finally he blinks a tear out of the corner of his eye and says,

“Is it time to harvest, Farmer?”

The historian breathes a sigh through a grin, closes his eyes, and shakes his head.

“Yes Farmer, it is time.”