The sun was already set by the time Jens tromped back home. He’d been working from sunrise to sunset for almost a week now, preparing the field for planting. Every muscle in his body ached and he was looking forward to a warm bath. Before that, however, he first checked on his seedlings. He had trays of seeds all over the kitchen, dining room, and living room covered in damp cloths to encourage them to sprout. Thousands upon thousands of seeds. He wasn’t looking forward to the hours of planting he still had ahead of him so for now he just focused on the tasks at hand.

A few trays of seeds were sufficiently sprouted that he marked them for planting in their starter pots. The shed in the backyard had hundreds of such pots that he’d already filled with dirt in preparation for the sprouts. That would be a job for tomorrow. For now he just placed a small card beside those trays to remind him to plant them in the morning.

That done, he grabbed a bag of plain roasted peanuts and went to the back patio. He tossed a few out into the grass and, just as had happened the last couple of evenings, a squirrel ran out of the hedges and began stuffing them into its mouth.

“Hey Charlie,” Jens called out to the squirrel and tossed a few more peanuts at it.

This time, the peanuts were a bit closer to Jens. The squirrel, Charlie, scampered over and stuffed those into its mouth as well.

“Today was rough, Charlie,” Jens said as he tossed out a few more peanuts, again closer to himself, and again Charlie came over and added them to its now bulging cheeks. “I finally got that last bit of the sprinkler system removed and started tilling the ground. Turns out there’s a million rocks smack dab in the middle of the field. Gonna have to cart the big ones out by hand since they’ll wreck the tiller if I don’t. Hopefully there aren’t too many.”

Jens held a few peanuts out in his hand for Charlie but this, it seemed, was too much to ask and the squirrel, after a moment of considering Jens’ outstretched hand and the peanuts within, darted back to the hedge and disappeared.

“Good night, Charlie.” With a sigh, Jens left that final handful of peanuts on the ground and went back inside for his much anticipated bath.

The hot water did wonders for his sore muscles. Having never been that physically active, Jens was finding the work of becoming a farmer for more taxing than he’d expected.

“I sure hope this gets easier,” he muttered to himself, sinking down into the tub until only his head was above the water.

The tub itself was huge, carved out of natural stone. One of those deep, jetted tubs that was almost the same size as a hot tub. As he soaked, he looked around the bathroom. It was probably the nicest one he’d ever been in. Marble walls and floors and the ceiling was some kind of brushed metal, copper or brass he guessed though he was no expert. The sinks and faucets were all the same kind of metal as well. The floors were also heated so he never had to worry about stepping onto cold tile while barefoot.

“This bathroom probably cost more to build than my apartment,” he guessed.

The rest of the house was similarly high end. It had taken him a few days to find all the hidden TVs that slid in and out of the walls or ceiling, depending on the room. There were two TVs in the bathroom alone, though why he’d need more than one he wasn’t sure. All of them tied into the central entertainment room and he could play any of the thousands of movies stored there on any of the television screens in the house. For now, he left them off since he wanted to just soak and keep everything calm and quiet.

The first few days, after discovering the TVs, he never let them stop playing something just so he could hear other people’s voices, but today he wanted peace. The voices on those movies had been comforting at first, but now they felt artificial. They weren’t real people talking in real life. They were just recordings. No more present than the photos of his friends and family on his cellphone. It hurt so much when he looked at those pictures, and yet it was worse if he didn’t.

Even now, he sat up in the tub, dried off his hands and reached for his phone so he could flip through his photos on his phone. The most recent pictures were from just a couple weeks ago when he and his coworkers went out to dinner together and sang karaoke till midnight. If he’d known then that in just a few days all of them would be gone, he would have kept them there, singing until the bar threw them out at closing time.

He started crying again after just a few pictures and he had to put the phone down. He climbed out of the tub and got ready for bed, quietly sobbing all the while. That was how most days went for him. Work all day, then come home and cry himself to sleep. As he lay his head down on his pillow, he looked out the window at the darkening sky where he could just make out the crescent moon rising into view. He didn’t fall asleep until it was all the way passed the window and gone and his pillow was wet with his tears.