Farming Alone.

The first moon was falling below the horizon. Part of me was happy that the light would soon fail and I would have a good reason to return home, the other part of me regretted not finishing the repairs on the farming matrix.

The softening rays of the sun, which hovered on the eastern horizon, reflected off the second moon’s rust colored surface illuminating the landscape in shades of orange and tired red.

The farming matrix seemed to absorb its light, the weathered old brass shown dully. The dusty gears were pocked with the beginnings of rust. The teeth of the sprockets were worn and rounded. The linkage shafts and chains were crushed in old oil and grease that had been pushed out by decades of service.

I had set to rebuilding the workhorse of a machine in the dry season when it would normally be left to bake under the twin moons light. Crops wouldn't grow this time of year, even in a matrix. I looked out over the landscape and as far as the eye could see, dried grass and sandy earth stretched out into the flat and features expanse.

The old farmers say it’s bad luck to look out into the empty, “The big empty” as they referred to it. They say a man’s mind can get lost, looking out into the big empty, endless miles of nothing. They say that when your thoughts come back to the here and now, you might find a long white beard hanging from your chin. So, I look away.

I focus on the farming matrix, that archaic technology that let us farmers wander through the stars, as far as we could haul our load. We fly out of starports in disposable deep space hauling rigs, our life's savings sloshing in the fuel tanks, setting our course for unknown dots in the sky.

My hauler corroded away a few hundred years back. It’s remains are now only marked by a cluster of sand grass, where the wind carried their seeds into it’s shadow.