The Reapers
                                                                                                                     by Ben Loory


    The reapers are coming. They move through the fields, slowly, slowly, swinging their scythes.

    The animals are frightened. They run, they flee. They move past the little house where the children live.

    The children emerge and stand gazing off. In the distance, in the fields, they see the reapers.

    Come, one child says, we have to go.

    Yes, says the other. Let's run.


    The children run. They run from the reapers. They run through the fields, through the tall grass. They run without thinking, without knowing where they're going, they run without looking back. They run in terror, through the snarling weeds, gasping; they run and run and run.

    Then one of them waves toward something in the distance.

    It reaches toward the sky: a tall tree.


    The children climb the tree, all the way to the top. They sit there, perched silently, staring out.

    Do you see them? one says.

    No, says the other.

    They crane their necks to look around.

    That's strange, says one.

    What? says the other.

    I don't see the crops either, says the first.

    No, says the second, after a while. Nor the weeds nor the tall grass either.

    The children turn and look to each other in fear, and then they both look down.

    The reapers are standing at the foot of the tree.

    Slowly, they are swinging their scythes.


    No! scream the children.

    They cling to the tree.

    They're going to chop it down! one yells.

    I know! says the other. What can we do?

    This is it, says the first. Close your eyes.


    And just then is when the birds come; when they descend from the skies; when they come circling down, singing songs.

    They're calling, says one child.

    To us? says the other.

    Oh yes, says the first. Oh yes!

    And the birds descend closer, and closer and closer and closer, and the children reach out with their little hands. And the birds' tiny talons wrap themselves around each finger, and grab onto the children's arms and legs.

    It takes the whole flock to lift the children from the tree, but the birds do it, and spirit them away.


    The reapers are still intent on their task when the children think to look back. They watch as the reapers keep chopping with their scythes until the tree comes crashing down. But the strangest thing is how slowly it falls, how slowly it drifts down through the air. It takes so long-almost forever-it hardly seems to fall at all.

    And when it does finally fall-when it does reach the ground-there's no longer anyone there to see. For the children are gone, long, long gone, and no one knows where they may be.