Day 9: Regret

The Prompt: Write a story that revolves around, "Lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!"


This one is a toughie! I expect it to be shorter.

Sandy reset her snooze alarm for the third time that morning.  "Just five more minutes."  She snuggled deep under her fuzzy covers and started slipping into dreamland when she was sucked right out of it.

"Sandy!" her mother exclaimed after she opened the door to her fourteen-year-old daughter's room.  "Get out of bed!  Your father needs you to start working in fifteen minutes.  You know it's harvest season."

Sandy sprang up when her mother yelled and moaned after the lecture.  "Alright, alright."  She flung the covers off the bed.  "I'm just so tired!"

"You wouldn't be if you didn't stay up so late reading."  Her mother pointed to a cheap romance book partially hidden under the bed.

The teenager blushed and shoved it fully under.  "Excuse me.  I need to get dressed."

"Of course, dear."  The door shut behind her.

"It was worth staying up to finish my book," Sandy thought to herself as she opened her work clothes drawer.  She saw a ripped out paper sitting on top of her jeans.  She then tenderly picked it up and lay down on her bed to examine it more closely.  "It won't be much longer until I get you!"

The paper had been ripped out of a magazine.  It was an advertisement for a stereo.  Sandy had wanted one for so long.  Her old one had broken four months, but her parents could not afford to buy her a new one.  Sandy had stacks of CDs in her closet, just yearning to be listened to again.  It was torture going without music for so long.  Her father had promised her that if they had enough crops that year, which seemed likely,  he would be able to buy it for her.  The only condition was that she had to work hard enough to earn it.  The deadline to harvest the crops and take them to market was just two weeks away.  Sandy had been working hard for the past few weeks and now the end was in sight.

Feeling energized in motivation, Sandy stood up, put the picture away, and got ready to start work outside.  She grabbed an apple from the kitchen on her way out and met up with her father in the machine shed.

He looked at his watch.  "You're right on time.  I was beginning to wonder if you would make it."

"I'm here," she beamed, taking a third chop out of her apple.

"I'm glad you are because I have something important to tell you."  Sandy chewed slowly as she listened.  "I have to go out of town for a week.  There's no way I can help it, I'm sorry.  That means that I am going to need you to help me harvest the crops while I am gone."

Sandy's eyes widened.  There was no way she could do all that work by herself!  As it was, the work she did for one person exhausted her.

"Now I don't expect you to work twice as hard.  I have it all figured out.  If you continue clearing the amount of land you've been doing every day and if I work for a couple extra hours each day when I get back, we should be able to harvest everything just in time.  Can you do that for me?"

Sandy swallowed, both her apple and the weight of responsibility she felt.  "I can do it, Daddy."

He smiled at her.  "I knew I could count on you.  I leave tonight."  He kissed her forehead.  "Thank you, Daisy," he said, calling her by her pet name she got from making daisy chains when she was six.

The next morning, Sandy woke up earlier than she was supposed to, anxious to get started on her work early.  She cleared even more than she expected to, and she became quite pleased with herself.  The next day, she woke up early again and did even better than the day before.  "At this rate, we can get the harvest done early!"

The third day, Sandy thought that she was entitled to sleep in a little bit (her body was so sore), so she set her alarm for her normal time.  She hit the snooze button one too many times, however, and ended waking up a half hour late.  Sandy rushed to get out to the field and took some shortcuts in her tasks to make up for lost time.  Her shortcuts only made matters worse, and she had to redo everything she had done.  The whole day was practically wasted.

The fourth day, Sandy set her alarm a half hour earlier, but she still managed to wake up five minutes later than her normal time.  Then her friends came over, and Sandy spent over three hours with them instead of the fifteen she had originally intended.  The remaining days her father was gone were wasted in similar fashion.

When her father arrived home Sunday night, he was disappointed to see that Sandy did not do her work like she should have done, but he did not say a word.  Sandy did not bother trying to explain or excuse away her neglect either.  She just woke up early each day and hoped she could make up for lost time.

Sandy and her father finished the harvest one day later than expected.  The prices in the market had dropped significantly, so they brought home less money than they hoped.  It was enough money for them to live on with a little extra to save for emergencies, but there certainly was not enough money for a new stereo.  Sandy knew she didn't deserve it anyways.  If she had simply harvested when the time was right instead of procrastinating, she wouldn't be living with her regret now.