Through the grape vine

Through the grape vine

Emily brushed the sweet, early morning dew off of a plump, red grape. She inspected it for a fraction of a second before promptly snatching it off of the vine and popping it into her mouth. With just one bite, delicious juice erupted from the grape and into her mouth, sending her taste buds tingling. Savoring this delightful favor, she scanned her surroundings. 20 acres of rich, fertile farmland was laid out before her. This land, however, was more than just farmland. It was Emily’s personal, much beloved vineyard. It may have been small, even smaller if you took Emily’s ramshackle house into account, but it was all that she wanted out of life.

She turned from the edge of the vineyard and looked passed her diagonally placed home. Other than the humble structure that was her house, nothing visible was in this direction besides a blank stretch of road and a foggy haze. Emily, however, knew the fog was only a thin façade to block out what lay beyond. Just beyond that innocent haze was a crouched monster, waiting to pounce onto her land. Just out of her sight was the city.

It might’ve seemed a bit of a farmer stereo type, but Emily really couldn’t stand the city. It wasn’t because it was “overwhelming” or because it compromised traditional values, but, rather, because it was a threat to her simplistic lifestyle. Put frankly, Emily was adverse to change, a thing common to city life. She wanted nothing more than to live and die nurturing her vineyard, living a modest life she might hand down to some young hopeful.

Emily turned a cheek to the city’s menacing fog and walked instead to the security of her shack of a house. That day she would wait for the workers to arrive before she followed them to the vineyard for man another day of the tedious nurturing she loved so much. In fact, the next ten years would pass in much the same fashion, though occasionally dotted with odd or “off” days. Every year passed marked, not only a new harvest, but another few miles the city expanded towards her.

Sooner than later, the monster city was no longer crouching just out of sight, but instead snarling at her doorstep. The change she had feared was happening right before her eyes, yet she was utterly powerless against it. It was as if Emily was no more than a rag doll in a rip tide.

By the time the ten years had passed, Emily was a “massive” lot of vineyard within a sea of modern, cookie cutter suburbia. The land steadily became less fertile, the air more polluted and the water more murky. Her perfect, sweet red grapes rotted on the vine, and soon, she wasn’t even earning the modest pay she once had.

Commercial developers screamed at her from all sides, begging to turn her once beautiful land into acres of strip malls and fast food restaurants. She didn’t have the choice of refusal. She didn’t have money.

First, she sold ten acres, then five, and soon after, another two. As mentioned before, Emily didn’t like change. Dislike, however, did not entail incapability. She was left with 3 acres and a handful of money. What to do? What else was there to do but to conform to the once despised city? Over the next year, Emily built a business. She sold off two more acres and established her business, creatively named, “Through the Grape vine”. Ultimately, it was a large outlet where people could rent space and sell their own products for yet another fee. It took a couple months, but soon, business was booming.

Emily then proceeded to buy a cookie cutter home in a generic housing development and settle down. Life may have been good, but never quite as good as it had been. This may have been because she had lost the satisfaction of owning a vineyard, but, In Emily’s mind, the reason was bit more simple. The convenience store grapes just never tasted as sweet as her had the morning she had glared warily at the foggy city.