In Times of Drought - a short story

The Drakenstein mountains

I can't say I much liked my entry in the Clarity of the Night competition, so keeping the competition's prompt, a glass of red wine, in mind, I thought I'd try it again, but a little less restricted by the 250 word count. I also thought I'd try something I don't usually do - set the story within my own environment.

In Times of Drought

Obsidian clouds rolled over the granite teeth of the Drakenstein peaks. Below the mountains the air brooded, pregnant with expectation. Rain spat on the earth in drops the size of quail eggs. The earth savoured each sip.
Andre Van Vuuren peered from the window of the farmhouse, swirled the wine in his glass lifting it to his nose to drink in the berried aroma. It had been a good vintage. The farm had profited well from the cultivar.
The room brightened as lightning sabers flashed between the clouds. Andre counted, waiting for the distant drum-roll of thunder to echo between the peaks.
He turned from the window and gazed at the room. Bereft of the history of his forefathers, its skeletal form clung to him. Generations of antiquities sold for whatever old Du Plessis down at the auction house could get for them. His eyes shimmered as he remembered his great-grandmother’s camphorwood kist. It had been a wedding gift to her from her grandmother, crafted by Jacobus de Wet soon after he’d arrived from Holland. He wondered who loved it now.
He pushed open the back door, letting the fly screen rattle back against the frame.
Wagter looked up at him, thumped his tail twice on the red-washed concrete of the stoep.
“Ja, old friend,” murmured Andre, bending to pat the dog’s grizzled head.
Together they sniffed the air. The rain was up there, somewhere in those grumbling clouds, but would it bless the land with its tears?
For ten years the clouds had taunted him, making promises they never kept. Rain would splatter to the earth and he would hold his breath – only to feel disappointment seep through his bones.
Why should this year be any different?
Andre stared across the golden gravel of the road to his vineyards.
The vines withered as he watched them, clinging to their supports with gnarled fingers. Soldiers on the cross, dying of thirst.
The phone trilled in his pocket. He glanced at the number and sighed.
“Hello,” he said.
“Andre, it’s Pieter. Listen, man, I’m really sorry but…”
“Ja, I know…”
He’d been expecting the call for months. It was only his friendship with his bank manager that had delayed the inevitable.
“I’m sorry, man, really I am. Come in tomorrow, we can talk about your options.”
“Ja, sure.”
He dropped the phone into his pocket.
Options. A small flat on the edge of town.
He walked back into the house as the thunder crashed above him.
Words from the old anthem echoed in his head… over our everlasting mountains where the echoing crags resound… They were words that now lay buried deep within the new anthem.
He picked up his wine glass, slung the gun over his shoulder and crossing the rose garden, walked into his vineyards. The soil, once sated with the sweat of his forefathers, clutched at his boots.
Earth to earth, he thought to himself.
He let the wine slide down his throat, relishing its chocolate and berry flavour.

The shot rang across the valley as the heavens opened and wept upon the earth, melding its moisture with scatttered drops of Pinot Noir - and the warmth of Andre Van Vuuren's blood.