This was actually a lot of fun. And I did the story in under an hour, including editing time to get the word count down. I'm still six words over, but that's pretty darn close! This prompt came from a site called The Story Shack. Every time you click on the button you get a different prompt so the challenge is to stick with the first one you get.
Word count: 250
Genre: Seasonal
Character: A lonely farmer
Material: A pillow
Sentence: "It's too warm."
Bonus: There seems to be no one left on the planet.
Jake looked out over the acres of ripening corn and bit back a sigh. Best crop he’d had in years, and no one left to see it. No one left to sell it to. No one left to eat it. He hated corn.
Shifting the pillow he carried, he turned and checked on the vegetable garden his wife had planted. The beans and peas needed to be picked again, but he wasn’t even finished eating the ones from two days ago. And he had no idea how to preserve them – that was Laura’s job.
There was a bumper crop of squash ripening on the vine, and the cabbages looked as perfect as ever. Stooping, he picked one – he’d have it with his supper tonight. He’d always loved Laura’s boiled cabbage, she had a real knack for it.
A warm breeze came from the north and made him shiver, and remember. The last thing Laura had said to him was, “It’s too warm,” and then she vanished, along with everyone else in the world. All he had left was the farm with its perfect crops and the pillow with her scent still on it.
The animals were gone too, and the birds. Jake didn’t know why he’d been spared; none of it made sense. The season never changed and the crops kept producing more than enough to keep him well fed. In his darker days he thought maybe he hadn’t been spared at all. Maybe this was a punishment for some past transgression. He’d probably never know.
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