Livora Gracely

一屋三餐皆尋常，炊煙繞樹伴朝陽。
Three simple meals beneath one roof;
morning smoke curls through the trees beside the rising sun.

Tok.

Something had fallen into the breakfast bowl.

The husband looked down and found a grain of rice floating in the thin porridge beside a small piece of thatch. He lifted the thatch carefully with his chopsticks and examined it while his wife watched from beside the stove, their baby wrapped warmly against her chest.

“Roof?” she asked.

“Breakfast,” he said.

She laughed, and the baby woke.

This was unfortunate. The baby had spent most of the night conducting a private disagreement with sleep, and neither parent had been invited to remain neutral.

Outside, the first sunlight was beginning to spread across the fields.

Morning Smoke

Mist still rested between the paddies, and the earth beside the house felt cool beneath bare feet. Overnight rain had left the path dark and soft, carrying the smell of wet soil, grass, and woodsmoke from the little stove.

Inside, a clay pot simmered quietly. Rice porridge, a few preserved vegetables, and tea made up breakfast. Nothing on the table required a second table.

The husband finished eating and reached for his hoe. His wife shifted the baby higher against her shoulder and glanced through the doorway at the brightening sky.

“Back before noon?”

He looked toward the field and then at the remaining porridge.

“Before the rice gets hungry.”

His wife followed his gaze to the bowl. “The rice has already eaten more than us.”

He considered this for a moment. It was difficult to argue with agricultural evidence.

He stepped outside with the hoe across his shoulder. Behind him, smoke from the cooking fire slipped through the old roof and curled around the tree beside the house before disappearing into the morning.

The Long Row

By midmorning, the sun had burned away the mist.

The wooden handle of the hoe grew warm beneath his palms, while wet soil collected heavily around the blade. Each stroke made a dull chak as the metal entered the earth, followed by the softer sound of mud falling away.

Near the far end of the field, he straightened his back and saw something pale moving along the narrow path.

It was his wife.

The baby was tied against her back now, sleeping beneath a thick cloth despite the uneven path. In one hand she carried a covered bowl.

“You forgot this.”

He opened it and found rice, greens, and one salted egg divided neatly in two.

He looked at the egg and then at her.

“You came all this way for half an egg?”

She sat beneath the nearest tree, opened the cloth covering the rice, and calmly took the larger half.

“No.”

The cicadas continued their argument overhead.

He sat down beside her.

Warm wind moved through the rice shoots with a long shhhhhh, bending hundreds of green heads together before letting them rise again. The baby slept through all of it, with a small smear of dried porridge still near one cheek.

The husband reached across and wiped it away with his thumb.

His wife noticed the blister beginning to rise across his palm.

She did not mention it.

When they stood to leave, she picked up the hoe.

He looked at her hand around its wooden shaft, then untied the sleeping baby from her back and settled the child against his own chest.

Neither considered this an arrangement requiring discussion.

Homeward

The afternoon had softened by the time they started home.

Their shadows stretched ahead of them along the narrow path. Somewhere beyond the paddies, a buffalo bell rang slowly, and smoke had begun rising from the first cooking fires in the village.

The baby woke halfway home and stared solemnly at his father as though surprised to discover that transportation arrangements had changed.

His father looked down.

“You complained about the other carrier.”

The baby blinked.

“That is what I heard.”

Behind them, his wife laughed.

When their little house finally appeared beside the field, a thin curl of smoke was already rising from a neighbor’s chimney. Their own chimney remained suspiciously empty.

His wife looked at it.

He looked at her.

Without saying anything, both began walking a little faster.

Three Bowls

That evening, three bowls stood on the table.

Two contained rice and vegetables. The smallest held warm water and a wooden spoon that the baby had apparently mistaken for agricultural equipment.

Tok.

The spoon struck the table.

The husband picked it up and returned it to the bowl.

A moment later, tok.

He retrieved it again.

On the third attempt, the spoon landed beneath the table. His wife continued eating as if this were now a matter between father and son.

The baby stared at the empty bowl and then at his father.

His father took another bite of rice.

The baby frowned.

Outside, the last orange light disappeared behind the fields. The little room had grown warm from the cooking fire, and the air smelled of steamed rice, smoke, damp cloth drying near the stove, and the faint earthy scent still clinging to the hoe by the door.

The baby leaned sideways and looked beneath the table.

His father followed his gaze.

They both bent down at the same time and nearly knocked their foreheads together.

The baby laughed.

His father reached the spoon first and placed it carefully back into the little bowl.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

His wife watched them over the rim of her tea.

Then the baby lifted the spoon.

Tok.

She closed her eyes.

The husband looked upward at the old thatched roof, then down at his son.

Apparently tomorrow the roof would have competition.