The Works of Mark EdgemonCORN ON THE MACABRE
The Works of Mark Edgemon from All-Creatures.org

Mark Edgemon has been writing for 30 years. He writes and publishes short stories, articles, poetry and scripts, as well as, produces audio comedy productions for over 700 radio stations nationwide.

Contact Mark through his website, Creator and the Catalyst.

CORN ON THE MACABRE
REAPING THE FRUIT FROM THE SEEDS YOU SOW

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Life is about making decisions, hundreds of decisions everyday. Without being grounded in Truth, people, like driftwood, are lead about by the force of the elements around them. One wrong decision, can lead a person down a path that ends in destruction.

Every decision made plants a seed that will come up in it’s time. If the decision is an evil one, the punishment is set in motion.

And so it was with Herman Joe Bidderman. With one wrong decision made for self preservation, he became evil and would not allow himself to turn back…which is where our story begins.

On a bitter cold day, rain pounding on the windshield of his old Chevrolet pick-up truck, Herman Joe Bidderman drove home from the feed store with only enough seed to plant twelve acres on his eighty-acre farm. He simply ran out of money.

He needed to plant 17 acres, in order to pay the mortgage on his farm; the farm he inherited from three generations of Biddermans or it would be repossessed by the bank in ninety days.

It seemed that Herman Joe Bidderman always stayed one step ahead of doom.

Suddenly, Herman saw a figure walk across the road. He had no time to stop, due to the fact his brakes were bad, another thing he needed money for.

He slammed on his brakes, sending his truck into a tailspin. He felt a sudden jolt as his truck came to an immediate stop. The hard rain continued to pound his truck, as he sat wondering what had just happened. He started the truck and tried to move forward, but it wouldn’t move.

An hour later the rain slowed down, so he could at least see out his windshield. His truck had spun around to the left and was blocking the road. The road was rarely traveled.

He got out of the truck and walked around to the back to see if his bad brakes had caused a blowout. As he rounded the end of the truck, horror gripped his entire being. Pinned underneath the truck’s front right tire, was the head of an old man he did not know. Blood covered the ground, mixed with mud, caused by the hard rain.

He walked further around the truck and found that he had not only hit the man, but the truck’s tires had ripped the old man’s stomach wide open.

The problem he had an hour ago, not having enough money to buy seed and fertilizer was no longer concerning him. He now had a much larger problem and he was scared. Nothing like this had ever happened to him. He had never hit an animal before, much less a human being.

He pulled the body out from under his truck, wrapped an empty burlap seed bag around the dead man’s mid-section, in order to keep the rest of his guts from pouring out. He got a shovel from his truck and dug up the bloody mud around the accident and tossed it in the back, to remove any sign of the incident. He lifted the dead man’s corpse into the truck and placed him in gently, so as to show respect for the dead.

As he drove back to his farm, he concluded that the old man must have been homeless, going from farm to farm, looking for work.

When he got to the farm, he drove straight out to the middle of the field and dug a hole three feet deep and placed the body in it. He buried it there because he thought no one would think of looking for a body underneath a field of corn. He took the truck out behind the barn and washed it down, removing the blood and the mud from inside the back of the truck. He parked the truck out back of his house and went inside.

The next morning, he got up several hours before dawn, went to make himself breakfast and realized he had nothing in the house to eat. He forgot to get food when he was in town and besides, he didn’t have money to buy food anyway. This only served to make him more determined and angry.

He grabbed the lantern to hang on his tractor, so he could see where he was plowing. When he got to the barn, he tried to light the lantern and discovered he was out of kerosene.

“Damn” he said, shaking his fist in the air. “I swear, I will grow the best corn in the county and nothing is going to stop me”.

He jumped on his tractor and started it up. He was going to plow in the dark. Whether it was stubbornness or fear or a little of both, he pulled the tractor out of the barn, taking the left side of the barn door with him.

“Damn!” he cried, “damn it to hell!”.

He couldn’t see anything. Every row he plowed was guesswork. He plowed for hours until dawn. It would be a day that would bring the promise of hope for most in the world, but not for Herman Bidderman.

As he rode past the field he had just plowed, he was speechless. In his anger and utter sense of desperation, he forgot that he had buried the old man in the center of the field. He was now looking at a field of blood. The tractor had dug up the remains of the dead man and plowed him into the field, grinding up and distributing his organs and bodily materials.

Although there are few visitors to Herman’s farm, there was always the possibilty of guests and that prospect was what kept him up nights…and days. The only thing to do now was plant the seed and wait until the crops grew to cover up the bloody field.

The days passed as his crops grew. He would stare out his window toward the dirt road, night and day. He would sleep in a chair by the window in case anyone should happen by, that he might steer them away from his fields.

As the weather got warmer and the days got longer, his crops grew and grew fast, unbelievably fast. Soon his crops were ready to harvest. They were well ahead of schedule. Matter of fact, they were incredible. The most beautiful crop of corn you could ever hope to see.

As Herman Joe Bidderman walked his fields, he laughed. He could not believe his eyes. Not only were the corn ears larger than normal, but there were ten times more stalks than usual.

He harvested the corn and took them to market. The other farmers at the market were amazed at his crop and wanted to know his secret. He wouldn’t tell them of course. He sold the corn, went straight to the bank and paid the mortgage on time.

No more green apples for him, which was his main sustenance for the last several months. Tonight, he would celebrate by having a steak dinner with all the trimmings.

He had another payment due in three months, so he kept back enough corn this time, to plant the entire eighty acres and as far as fertilizer was concerned…he had prospects.

The next day, Herman went hunting. Not for food, but for fertilizer. He wasn’t a very good shot, but he tried his best and came back with only one rabbit. He didn’t shoot it…he stepped on it. But one rabbit would not fertilize an entire field.

Later that day, a farmer on a neighboring farm came over to complain about the gun noises he heard earlier in the day. Herman was worried about how to fertilize his fields and didn’t have time to put up with the farmers ravings. The neighboring farmer threatened, if Herman shot off his gun one more time, he would call the sheriff and have him arrested for disturbing the peace.

As the farmer ranted on, Herman had come up with the solution to his fertilizer problem.

Late that night, Herman put a battering ram on the front of his truck, four feet long, which extended across his bumper. It was two feet thick, made of iron, which he got off of some broken farm equipment.

The next morning he rose early, prepared himself some coffee, eggs and toast and headed out in his truck. Instead of driving out his driveway, he drove toward the woods on the outskirts of his property. He carefully maneuvered around the trees until he reached the neighboring farm, the farm owned by the same farmer, who cursed him out the day before.

Like most farmers, this farmer was out working in his field at daybreak. Herman saw him and raced the truck toward him. The farmer raised his hands, motioning for Herman to stop, while cursing him at the top of his lungs. Herman drove onto the field tearing up the crops as he drove over them. The farmer was outraged and swore he was going to get the sheriff, until he realized the truck was heading straight for him. He began to run, but it was to no avail. Herman’s truck was old, but it had no problem running down an old farmer with rheumatism.

Seconds later, the newly added battering ram smacked the farmer sending him three feet into the air, before landing him in the squash.

Herman got out of the truck, picked up the corpse of the dead farmer and threw him into the back of the truck.

He drove back to his farm and planted the body in the lower right section of his field. He was digging the hole, when his truck, which was parked on a steep incline, started rolling down toward the field at the exact spot, where he was. Herman was focused on his work, so he did not see the truck barreling toward him.

The truck’s battering ram hit Herman in the back, breaking his spine and sending him into the hole on top of the body he was burying. He couldn’t move. He cried out, but no one could hear him. He couldn’t feel his legs, but he was alive. The battering ram acted like a bulldozer and pushed three feet of dirt on top of Herman, burying him alive. He always meant to have those brakes fixed.

Three months later, the bank executive in charge of Herman’s account, came out to the farm with a developer, who had bought the farm on auction. After walking over the farm, they came to the fields and saw the most beautiful crop or corn either of them had ever seen. Since the developer now owned the property, he harvested enough to take home to his family.

The next day, he made a deal to have the rest of the crop harvested by the widow, who lived on the neighboring farm, who’s husband had mysteriously disappeared. She sold all of the beautiful corn at the farmers market to the amazement of the other farmers who were there.

When they asked how she grew such a beautiful crop, she told them she harvested it on Herman Bidderman’s abandoned farm.

The other farmers were indeed impressed. They were all in agreement. Herman Bidderman may have been a failure in life, but he sure knew how to grow the best corn in the county.

You know…you really do reap what you sow!

Copyright © 2007 Mark Edgemon

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