Harvest Without Echo

Applause moves down the vine row like weather, palms meeting and parting as a small figure darts past the basket. The grapes pull the air sweet and dark; juice has already bruised the dust into purple. Stone walls hold their cool, stitched with roots that remember hands before these. Beyond, a hill town watches from a remove, square and patient, as if counting seasons rather than people. I stand as an outsider to the cadence, noting how the rhythm closes ranks around the task. Music comes from strings lifted at the edge, a simple strum to set pace, and the clapping answers it like a ritual learned from soil. There’s a proverb locals whisper when the harvest runs late—that what leaves with the carts circles back as song. Yet someone hasn’t returned this round. The name follows the row, faint as fermenting skins. The basket fills, the day loops, and the search presses on, because Vojta hasn’t appeared.