Scarecrow

You mean like a scarecrow? I had one once. Years ago. An antique. I know, I know, how does one find an antique scarecrow? They are, after all, mostly old clothes and straw filling. Yet, there it was.

I had taken a wrong turn trying to avoid the 99 back into town. I followed nameless backroads this way and that thinking I could outsmart distance and beat the traffic home. I failed to take into account that I’m terrible with directions. It was then that I past an old farmhouse which had not aged well in the last century. In front of the place was a wide assortment of antiques which had obviously been part of the house since the day it was built.

I don’t know why I stopped, but I did. Something compelled me to have a look around. The stone grey eyes of a stern old man in his rocking chair on the porch followed me as I looked about. Very little was without rust or severe wear. When I asked the man why he was selling all his old stuff, he just stared silently at me. No. Not at me, through me. I felt uncomfortable and wanted to get out of there, but my anxiety refused to let me leave without a purchase. That is when I saw it; a very old, very worn, scarecrow.

The thing was dressed in dingy overalls, a black duster, and a sun bleached straw hat. It unnerved me, but it was the only thing among his overpriced junk I could afford. Really, it was also the only thing I could fit in my vehicle.

I eventually made my way back home. I caught up with the 99 and crawled through it at a snail’s pace. There had been an accident or something. I saw lights and heard sirens in the distance at one point.

I placed the scarecrow on my balcony facing out onto the empty dirt field next door. I thought it made for a creepy harvest accent–and I was curious to see how long it would take before someone in the community complained about it to the city council.

The next morning the scarecrow had been moved. Not fallen over, but moved in front of the sliding glass door looking in my bedroom. I thought my kid was trying to be funny, so I moved the scarecrow back to where I had first set it. It was not the last time the scarecrow would move without my help. I often found it away from its place, and every time I thought it was my son’s attempt at a prank.

Finally, I confronted my kid. Told him I didn’t think his antics were funny. Of course my kid denied all wrongdoing. Soon after, things escalated. Not only would the scarecrow be misplaced, but also found with dead rodents and snakes stuffed in its pockets or laid at its foot post.

My kid continued to deny this strange behavior, so we had no choice but to have him committed. Things had quieted down for a while, but within a few weeks the scarecrow started turning up all over the house again, and no one confessed to moving it about.

I began having strange nightmares. I would wake up in a panic to the sounds of pained screaming. No one else seemed to notice. Then the whispers started. Disembodied voices emanating from the scarecrow. It urged me to offer up my home and family for its dwelling place.

It needed us…it needed me…and I needed it. It revealed amazing secrets. Insight which transcended our limited understanding of the cosmos. I gave it what it wanted. My home, my family, and my life.

We served it in violence, but it was going too far. I think I came out of my stupor when it asked me to sacrifice the souls of my family to it. I couldn’t do it. I packed it up, took it to the dirt field next to my place, doused it in gasoline, and lit it up.

I had never heard such terrible screams in my life. It’s been gone for a number of years now, but I still wake up from time to time to the sounds of screaming coming from the dirt field next door.