Peaches growing in the trees. Fuzzy, round, sweet spheres falling from the branches, rolling on the ground. Eaten by young, smooth hands. The sun hung in the sky and tanned his skin, made him dark as a gunpowder cloud.

Then there was the tune. Music unlike anything he’d ever heard. He stopped biting halfway through the peach, his jaw lingering there like a rusty hinge. His mouth overflowed with sweet, silky juices.

Twang-Twang, the tune went, and while it continued, he found himself enthralled, swallowed by it. He was the peach, and the song was the eater—ravenous and starving: a dog. The boy couldn’t move, and when he tried, his body surrendered. Like struggling though quicksand.

A shadow—a long, black shadow loomed over him. And he, as any boy would have, was afraid of it. The tune became soothing, slowed with his heart. Time seemed to fall away like rows of wounded soldiers.

“Boy.” It was the voice his father above the Twang-Twang. He tried to turn, tried to yank the peach from his mouth. Nothing, just warmth. A sauna from the inside. “Turn around.”

The boy did, although he didn’t the how of it. His father was a tall man, taller then Jefferson Davis himself, all dressed up in a clean Confederate uniform. The Stars and Bars waved above their home in the distance.

“I want you to listen, son (twang). Sherman’s a-comin’, and I have to go now. There’s a chance I won’t be comin’ back, ya hear?” The boy tried to nod. “You see this banjo? (twang). It’s important to me and you’re Ma. Now this is the part where you listen up. I’m gonna put this here banjo in its case and you’re gonna take it out to the ol’ graveyard. You know where that is, right?”

His motioned freed for an instant. He nodded and with a riff locked up again.

“Good,” his father said, intensifying the tune. “You’re gonna take this here banjo and hide. You’re gonna fall asleep, for a whole day, until you feel the moon in the sky. It’ll be full, ya hear? And when you wake up, boy—you ain’t gonna remember nothing until you of age. Sixteen should be good, but when you remember it, it ain’t gonna hurt, understand?”

No nod this time, but his father knew that was a yes. The boy was gone in a deep standin’ sleep. He didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. The tune ended with a harsh, painfully sharp twang. The boy’s pupils dilated; the peach dropped from his mouth. He placed the banjo in its ancient case and shut it hard.

Carefully, as if giving away a favorite daughter, he handed his son the banjo. His father turned, a great gray monolith, and marched to the front line, dying from a shot in the chest. Bleeding from the lungs while the boy slept soundlessly in the graveyard, humored by peach trees and ghosts.