Farm Fresh Revisited

"Her first thought, curiously, was of Auden's poem on the fall of Icarus. Such events, said Auden, occur against the backdrop of people going about their ordinary business." McCall-Smith, from The Sunday Philosophy Club










Sam Farrar had just made up his mind. It was far too early in the morning and he knew by 4:45 that he had not closed blinds to his second story window above the Farm Fresh overlooking Lake Monona, Madison WI, and the mere brightness of the sun had begun to make its soft glow along the walls of his office. He didn't make a habit of sleeping here anymore; there had been plenty of these nights when the Fresh had just opened when he decided by one-thirty in the morning, with dirty dishes still stacked at the rack, new servers still stunned, and tomorrow's rotating menu already peaking up over the morning of his mind, that he would casually disappear from the kitchen, grab a cheap bottle of Korbel champaign and slip up into his office for a few hours of sleep. It had been over the course of many of these nights that he had brought up with him a pull-out ottoman bed, a fine piece of furniture that no visitors could every guess also served as a nightly mattress. He had thought of a washer and dryer; why not a small version of a kitchen right here in the room along with him? Well, why not move in? It was at that revelation that something in him had snapped and he realized that there are many ways to live your work but without proper definition of drawing boundaries, well, days become one long elastic stretch with no real divisions. He got rid of the ottoman and never did build his own kitchen. This morning, as he was looking through the news online, he wished he had his bed back, and last night.