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For sale. Square brome hay bales.

Its Tuesday morning, crack-of-dawn hour and I am wide awake in the anticipation

of today’s newspaper. That’s right, newspaper. o I’m not winning the lotterytoday. I was ne!er a lucky fellow. "erhaps if I was one, then I wouldn’t be lyingawake waiting for today’s newspaper to be deli!ered. I would be sleepingcomfortably, in my own bed, with my wife and kids, content and happy. #utthat’s a story for another time. $ight now, I’!e more important things in my life.%ike my classi&ed ad!ertisement. I ga!e it up for print last week. I’m 'a!e, bythe way. I’m () and alone. I li!e in a large, empty house in a small farm in*ansas. $ight, back to the ad. It’s appearing in today’s newspaper. +nd as I mo!emy stare from the random crack on my ceiling to the grandfather clock, I see its

. am and it’s time to bear the fruit of my sleepless night.

I run to my porch to pick the newspaper up before the neighbour’s dog does.illy tends to do that a lot. It’s /ust one of the reasons why I don’t like that e!il

thing. I’m pretty sure, his mistress, 0rs. "erkins is somehow behind the whole1oh, dear lord, willy got your newspaper again 'a!e. #ad willy2. #ut today is notthe day to dwell o!er 0rs. "erkins and her wretched dog’s misad!entures. Todayis the day my ad comes and today is the day I begin the long, painful process ofmo!ing on.

I had been in!ol!ed in hay bale business since I turned 34 and inherited it frommy father. It was ne!er a high paying stu5 but it kept me and the missus 6oating.

The country-life was smooth, slow and satisfying. Then came the kids and Ithought it was time to e7pand, make hay while the sun shines. So I !entured intoanimal keeping. I thought it was the logical thing to do. 8orse, cows and bales ofhay go together like bacon and breakfast. I started going into the city. hen youare running a goddamn farm business, sometimes you ha!e to lick some cityboots to make do. 9sually the boot-licking is reser!ed for corporate giants andpeople in theatre. #ut, like I said before, I was ne!er a lucky fellow. The citybecame a second home to me. %et me correct that, the city, became the onlyhome for me. I don’t know what it was. hether it was the bright city lights, thee!er-6owing boo:e, the sheer larger-than-life society, the woman. 0ay be it was

the lack of all those things in my early life that made e!ery single morning withstrange people in the city, feel like a ;hristmas morning. The erstwhile satisfyinglife of country was long forgotten and satisfaction of that kind no longerappealed to me.

0eanwhile, my wife and the children were back home. %i!ing the slow,agoni:ingly mundane life in e!ery sense of the word. aiting for the dutifulfather and husband to make a rare appearance. #ringing them food and clothes.I did bring them food, and clothes, and money. hat I could ne!er being mychildren was my laughter, their laughter, our laughter. hat I could ne!er bringmy wife was &delity and honesty. In their eyes, I was making the great sacri&ce.Foraging into the city day-after-day, li!ing there for weeks, probably working mybones o5 for them. The chasm between the reality and their beliefs was wider

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than the distance between my real home and the city. #ut they ne!ercomplained. either my wife, nor my kids.

In the midst of the boot-licking, the hay-making, and the animal rearing, mychildren grew up. 0y life in the city was o!er. I was ( and no woman would now

look twice at me. o market would buy my hay bales and my animals anymore.o random strangers would sit with me and share their e7citing life stories o!er a

pitcher of ale. +nd it was at this golden year of my life that I reali:ed what I threwaway. I was truly homeless, in the sense, that the home I belie!ed to be minewas /ust an illusion of youth, a mirage of e7citing possibilities borne out of yearsof boredom. <n the other hand, the home I had left behind, was full of peoplethat were my own blood, but were more of a stranger than the elderly bartenderin the city bar.

Soon my elder daughter was getting married and going to li!e = miles away.Soon my son was mo!ing to a city in another country. +nd soon my wife waslea!ing me to marry a guy who would ne!er cheat on her. Soon, !ery soon, I wasleft all alone in the big house in the small farm in *ansas. I ne!er cared for them.+nd I was careless to the point that I ne!er e7pected them to care for me. 0aybe that’s the reason that I didn’t feel a pang of regret seeing my wife go and mykids lea!e. I felt the same amount of sadness that a passerby might feel seeing adeath procession go on the street.

The last I talked to my kids was three years ago. Since then, neither ha!e I calledthem, nor ha!e they. I ha!en’t talked to my e7-wife in two years. I neither e7pect,nor ha!e any inclination to talk to her. I /ust want to sell my last batch of square

hay bales. I made them a month ago and they’!e been lying around in the emptyfarm. There are no longer any animals to eat them. I open up the classi&eds andsee my ad!ertisement. >For sale? Square brome hay bales. ;all 'a!e’. In theentire page, my ad stands out. It’s colourful and has a small cartoon of a guyholding a square brome. 0ay be its some sort of irony. The colourful and cheerfulad for a guy’s one month old stack of hay bales contrasts nicely with the sheergreyness of his bleak life. I sit on the porch and stare at the ad, wonderingwhether I’!e packed e!erything up. + few clothes and a few old books only makeup so much room. I wonder the family that would come in this house after me@ Iwonder if the man would be good father, a lo!ing husband. I wonder if he would

care about losing his family, his home.

The thoughts swirling in my head, I continue to stare at the ad. I can hear illyyipping close by. It makes for certain poignancy in the story of my life that thelast e!entful thing I would remember is my ad and illy’s bark. +s I close myeyes for a second, I see the beautiful city lights twinkling, beckoning me, orperhaps taunting me. I can no longer hear illy’s bark.