Gavin Lucky


On the Farm

(I live on a compound and walking home one evening, I imagined what life would be like if 
everyone on the planet dropped dead, except someone living on this farm.)


Day 31 on the farm

Everyone’s dead Dave
Dave everyone’s dead

there was no one else
on the farm
every one of them dead
Dave thought

even the frogs
but no
there they go

they’ve killed every
one but the frogs.



Day 57 on the farm

Now truly getting used to the idea
of how really dead everyone was
Dave would go for walks
in the daylight
and sometimes in
the enveloping dark
he was never alone
but there was nothing larger than the storks
ferrying to and fro over
the horizon
which was still pink
and inviting and
erotic but there was nothing
bigger than a stork
there weren’t even any snakes
and he was far

from apple country.



Day 73 on the farm

He wondered what had done it
in the end
it was hard to think of yourself
as living past the end
there was no end to 
the cans in the pantry and
there was no one else around
it was practically a bank vault
unless an elephant broke in or the 
foundations collapsed (it would take years and years and years) he would never run
out of food
he would never leave

in the end



Day 142 on the farm

And he rose from his cot on the floor
and like every day imagined
how they had all died
what they were doing
who they were with
in a sense
it was a mercy his parents
had already died
but his brothers his sister
their husbands and wives and boyfriends and girlfriends and partners and casual acquaintances 
and their descendants and their pets and the pets descendants and their friends 
and his friends and so on
he passed a tree everyday
his thoughts reminded him of that
tree, but not so real

probably.

Gavin Lucky is a peripatetic teacher. Previous work of his has appeared in Otoliths, Shot Glass Journal, Riverbed Review, and MacQueen’s Quinterly.

 
 

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