Leap of Faith

‘There has to be something more than this,’

She said, with a thoughtful frown,

Standing over the farmhouse sink

And the dishes, looking down,

Her brother was out in the milking shed

And her mother had gone away,

They hadn’t seen her in fifteen years

But thought of her, every day.

 

They’d both grown up in the countryside

Secure on their father’s farm,

Had walked the mile to the little school

By way of Maltraver’s barn,

The air was pure and the nights were clear

They could see way up to the stars,

And Jessie would watch as the moon appeared

While her brother would stare at Mars.

 

They had their chores as they grew, of course,

For Adam would milk the cows,

While she would carry the bucket down

To feed the pigs and the sows,

There was fencing, drenching, ditching too

There was never a moment spare,

But Jessie fretted for something new

In the way of the world out there.

 

The father died in the Autumn time

And left the farm to his son,

‘Jessie will marry and move away

The way that it’s always done.’

She packed her bags when she turned eighteen

And she caught the bus to town,

She told her brother she’d keep in touch

But Adam was feeling down.

 

‘We’ve always been together,’ he said,

‘And now you’re going to roam,

When you get sick of the city lights

You can always come back home.’

‘I’m bored,’ she said, ‘with the simple life,

I’m going to have some fun,

She kissed him as she got on the bus,

Said, ‘Sorry, I have to run!’

 

She rented a small apartment with

Some money her father left,

And worked in Haile’s Department Store

In the basement, wrapping gifts,

She gradually met the bright young things

That hung in the clubs and bars,

Dangling chains and cheap gold rings

And high as the planet Mars.

 

‘It’s a totally different world out here,’

She wrote on home to the farm,

‘The place that they hold the dancing here

They call it ‘The City Barn!’

It’s full of strobes and coloured lights

And the music’s wild and free,

You’ll have to come to the city, bro

And I’ll take you out with me.’

 

Adam finally drove to town

In the farm’s old battered ute,

He took a shirt that he’d newly pressed

And his only screwed up suit,

He knocked on Jessie’s apartment door

And a Goth had let him in,

The place was full of the hoi poloi

And he couldn’t hear a thing.

 

The thumping rhythm would drown him out

And it made him feel a fool,

His sister gave him a little pill,

Said, ‘take it bro, it’s cool!’

He shook his head and he dumped the pill

In a pot plant on a stand,

Said, ‘Jess, you’d better get out of here,

This crowd will see you damned!’

 

‘I’ve never heard anyone talk so slow,’

Said the Goth with the purple hair,

‘Your bro’s a little bit slow as well,

Are they all like that, out there?’

One night was all that it took, and Jess

Was pushing him out the door,

‘You’d better get back where you belong

Or I’ll die of shame,’ she swore.

 

It took all night in the battered ute

‘Til he reached the open plains,

Shook off the stench of corruption

In the first life giving rains,

The city lights in his mirror had

Receded to just a glow,

When the stars came out in a country night

That the city would never know.

 

And Jess, back there with her new-found friends

Was dizzy up on the heights,

They fed her chemicals, liquid dreams

And they tricked her into flight,

‘There has to be something more than this,’

The last thought that she’d got,

While Adam had smiled at the countryside

And said to himself, ‘There’s not!’

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Ravyne Hawke]

What a brilliant tale! I love the juxtaposition of their lives. I always had a burning for something else out there and my mother always had me pegged as the daughter who would settle down and have a bunch of kids. How little she really knew me. Thank you for this wonderful write, David.

[TL Boehm]

There is a lesson in this for sure. I wish my own family had "stuck to the soil" but they didn't. They were wanderers and here I am now homeless.

[Tate Morgan]

simple pleasures are the best so they say.having measured many I can say I always treasured few

[Enid Blake]

The grass is always greener if we dont tend to our own garden :) Great rhythm and I love your tell-tale subtleties which carry the underlying theme like how you choose for him to 'dump the pill in a pot plant' - or perhaps I over analyse? However it works for me!

[s y e]

I love your writes, David - you always have great description and really well detailed writes. The imagery in this write was great. One of my favourites from you.

[Keith]

I'm with Adam. Another great piece.

[shallimarRose]

"They fed her chemicals, liquid dreams
And they tricked her into flight,
‘There has to be something more than this,’
The last thought that she’d got,
While Adam had smiled at the countryside
And said to himself, ‘There’s not!’"

The whole story line in this one is fantastic.. In the beginning I was thinking about Green Acres with Aeva Gabor and Eddie Arnold.. by the end I was in the lonely hearts club band of Sgt Pepper..... Great write David. How are you feeling? xo Rose

[Marie]

A sad storu. We seek for more and better and brighter--never realizing we already have it.

[Baby Ricochet]

I was born and raised in a little po dunk town in South Carolina called Camden. My mom was from NYC and she took us boys to Manhattan every chance she got which I loved. My primary reason for joining the Marine Corps was to get out of Camden cause I knew there was more to life than that miserable place. Great story Mr Paget. One of my favorites from you