If you see someone run into the high corn fields, do not chase after them.

Unorthodox things have begun to occur within Saint Manon Hills. Many have long left since I left for university, but others remain for the sole fact that home is cheaper than that of the big city. Even I can attest to that. The tall buildings and too close stores felt overwhelming, but once you were just on the outskirts to see the farmland, it was a breath of fresh air. I could not see how others can escape to concrete jungles like that, basking in the lack of greenery and the over lack of personal space. Returning home was best after graduation, but it looks as if everyone has taken to the old church once again, placing their exhausted hopes and dreams into the void in hopes for wealth or a good season of growth.

It's growing, yes. The village to a town into a proper city. No big buildings, a handful of new stores to allow the younger generation to find craft and trade. Others, however, frowning upon that of modernization in favor of tradition. But we have to move on, do we not? We do not have to become the powerhouse that the metropolis' have become. We just have to adapt somehow.

I return from Mt. Camden from university for that of the burial of my grandparents. I was told they went silently, one right after the other. Her from heart attack, the other from heart break. Believable, yes. Grandfather adored her. They'd sing and dance around the house, even in their slower years where there was no longer any dipping, but long, slow strides and gentle touches. To leave this world side by side was something I expected.

Alas, outside of those frumpy old men and graying women, I've began to notice the wails at night. Some pained, some surprised. Others in anguished fury. From my front door, I've watched as the handful have crowded ‘round the hooded morticians as they carried off a body, a pet, something wrapped in white, with ached pleas pouring from their mouths. Had I returned to a pandemic? No one else would honor me with answer. I've questioned elders I've known for years and they button up. I've requested answer from old peers--nothing.

...I am to stay here until new year as I expect to gain my inheritance and understand what may happen to my childhood home. While here, I intend to finish my studies, but document what I learn of my home as it lingers in this state of reformation.

In God's honest truth, once things are over, I may leave. It doesn't feel too much like home anymore.

The house is empty for the first time. No more pitter patter of young feet. No more gossip in the kitchen. Grandmother's perfume no longer lingers and, in truth, that stung the most. It was that one little thing I associated home with. If it wasn't her perfume, it was the way the house smelled of whatever she baked or the sound of the old man cackling in the distance, cigarette in his mouth, and meat on the grill with his equally louder friends that always felt like they were family too.

Tuberculosis took mother when I was young. I didn't know my father. They were all I had, and I say that with gratefulness pinned to my heart. If not for them urging me to push on in my academics, I would still be here, lost in that endless cycle in this podunk town that drains everyone. And yet, somehow I still return, listening to that everlasting peaceful sound of the grains and corn rustling in the breeze and the children playing hide and seek in the high stalks.

Nothing is the same anymore.

The festival that filled this town celebrating the end of harvest and the season of rest never followed the endless progression of coffins to the graveyard. The town was in mourning, and I still couldn't understand why. No one wanted to speak to me... Except Yasmin.

She came by with a basket full of fruit from her orchard. Her overalls were tucked into her boots and sunhat cocked to the side by the wind. After the years that have passed since I've left, she hadn't changed a bit. Still a lovely woman; stocky and round faced, big friendly brown eyes, and a smile that glowed on blotched cheeks.

"Wish things could have been better for you to come home," she said, "would have been better if you came home to celebrate graduating."

"That was the plan for next year once I obtained my final degree."

"Final? How many they gonna give you?"

"Two, I'm not doing more than that."

We spent most of the morning catching up. She had gone and married Leo and they stretched his little store from our shit-stained town to the nearby farms in order to expand her orchard and push his sales. No children; just them... happy as can be.

"You dress like them, know that right?"

"Like who?"

"The city folk. You got that neck thing and a coat that makes you look like a fancy equestrian and the rest of us still covered in dirt with shoes covered with holes."

"I'm not that bad."

"For up there not down here, Riley!"

And then I made a mistake...

"What is killing the people... do you know?"

And she stared at me, as if she was trying to tell me to shut my mouth with a squint, "Donno what you're talking about."

"Yas. There are too many bodies every day for you to say you don't know."

Then she frowns, her demeanor changing within an instant. She stood, not once making a noise or ever looking back at me. "Maybe the city is the best place for you."

And she left.

And I still don't know why.

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