A Cozy Week at The Farm

“A Cozy Week at The Farm” is one of the outstanding stories of the first biannual International Short Story Contest 2018 written by Muhammad Suliman Asfar, Footprints International School, Phom Penh, Cambodia.

A Cozy Week at The Farm

It was one of those super cold Saturdays in New York. I woke up with my son Bisher who just turned 13 and is in 6th Grade. He is well organized and has an alarm clock so he wakes up on time. When Bisher was taking a bath, I had already made breakfast for my family and we were ready to leave. My pet dogs Milo and Jego were having their mealtime too, they were also friends with Jamie and Rocky who were my parent’s dogs at the farm.

I was going to my parents’ farm with my family in my truck, like I always do during winter, it’s an hour drive from New York City to the farm. I was driving a Mitsubishi Triton and the dogs were at the bed of the truck.

An hour later when we all reached the farm Bisher got so excited that he started to talk to the dogs and what fun they will have during this holiday. When I opened the fence, it was 2:15pm. In no time I saw the dogs rushing into sight waging their tails and barking and howling to show their excitement. With all this noisy welcome of dogs my mom who was in the kitchen, hurried to open the main door and hugged us tight. After all the meet and greet, I went into the room and kept all our luggage. After not seeing my dad anywhere in the house I questioned my mom where he was. She said, “he had gone to the market to buy some groceries and stuff for the farm…” but before she could have finished talking I heard dad’s truck coming towards the house and along with him was a stranger. I opened the door and greeted them. Dad introduced me to his friend whose name was Fred Jones. Dad told us he works at the nearby grocery store and a good acquaintance of my dad, today on the way home my father had a flat tire and Fred Jones helped him.

My father is a farmer, and my mom is a housewife, they live at the farm. I live in New York City with my small family and own a workshop called Suliman’s repair and Fred Jones works at the Five Keys super market from where my dad buys daily stuff, the super market named after the farm street Five Keys. To return his helpful favor my dad asked Fred Jones to stay until dinner that evening. That same night my family including Fred Jones were enjoying my mom’s special recipe of fish and chips with vegetable soup, and shared old stories of our childhood memories. At that very moment we heard some strange noise of chickens clucking and Jamie’s continues barking. So, quickly my dad got the gun out that he always keeps for protection, I got the baseball bat and Bisher was holding a flash light. Feeling brave the three of us started to follow the barking.

It was a cold December night, an owl was hooting on the branch of an old oak tree, the crickets were chirping and the moon was shining bright. I whispered loudly to dad and said “maybe it is a thief and we need to be extra careful”. When we almost reached the chicken pen, we saw a fox, that sneaked into the chicken pen. Rocky, Milo and Jego were too busy playing to notice the fox but Jamie was always alert and dug a big hole and put leaves to cover the trap. Jamie was still barking and circling around the hole he had dug. So, quickly we rushed to Jamie and saw the fox staring at us. In a few seconds we remembered about the other dogs who were just fine and they were also looking at the fox. Even though my dad was holding the gun he did not shoot the fox, instead he called the Wild Life team to rescue the lost animal. When they arrived, they were holding a chicken and a net. One of the ranger asked where the fox was and what it was doing. My dad pointed out and said it was in the trap. My dad went with the rescue team to get the fox, but before leaving dad told me to stay with the dogs and Bisher as the fox was scared.

Very soon I saw that the rescue team was walking towards the van and the fox was in the net. When Bisher caught sight of the fox he ran to one of the rangers and asked if they were going to kill the fox. The ranger replied that they were just going to let it be free in the wild. After the rangers left we all headed back to the farm house and sat by the fire and told our adventure of the fox and the dogs to mom and Fred Jones.

The weather was getting cooler, Fred Jones request to leave before it started to snow we all dropped him to the gate, and after he left we also decided to go to bed right away because we had to wake up early next day to work in the farm like getting the wood in the tractor, gathering eggs, feeding the animals and other field work, with all these planning in my mind Bisher and I went into our warm, cozy room and in no time we both fall asleep.