He sauntered through the field, a white man forty some years of age wearing a pair of large-rimmed glasses and bearing slicked dark hair. The expression on his face was thoughtful and vigilant.
He strolled amidst a massive pumpkin patch, its hilly surface gouged into ridges. Large, harvestable pumpkins perched in haphazard positions throughout the rolling expanse. The man look ruminatively from the field and its humongous vegetables to the faraway barnyard, stables, haybale maze and souvenir shop, all preceded by and superseded by a tractor-plotted dirt path, and finally to the early morning sky. Most of the atmosphere overhead was a nightly black; it grew gradually brighter until the horizon, where an orange glow rose up in a wave, its crest a wild, mixed effulgence of red and green and gold. He looked further down, to the lowest point in the field of pumpkins, where a small lake existed. There a rowboat sat, half-ashore, his lady within and awaiting his return.
He trampled over clumps of reeds and cattails that lined the basin's muddy rim. Pushing the boat further into the water, he climbed in and rowed until he and she were floating near the lake's center.
She looked so serene and, though she hadn't an opportunity to groom or shower recently, as beautiful as the day he first saw her. She lay on her side, her brownish-blonde hair obscuring her face in grouped strands. He brushed them away fondly, wishing he'd have spent more time with her.
The boat leaned as he hunched over its edge. He stared into the black water, wondering how low down its depths truly went. How easy it was for him to imagine himself standing up and diving headfirst into the frigid water, swimming down deeper and deeper until he reached a point where it became too dim to see and his ears and lungs ached, and no matter how hard he struggled, he would never be able to resurface in time; his date with Death would be sealed, and perhaps the world would be a better place.
But he would not do that. He couldn't leave his darling to waste away on this rowboat in her lonesome for some nobody to stumble upon. They would reap glory for the discovery, despite him being the one to verily discover her. And besides; everyone must fulfill their life's calling, even if its effect on the world is... bitter.
There was a thin road beyond the pumpkin patch. At this time of day, it was desolate--usually. Across the distance between him and the road, he spotted on its side a woman, blonde and jogging, headed in the direction of the sunrise.
With an enervated sigh, he lifted his female companion into his arms and tossed her body into the lake. Her pockets and undergarments stuffed with weights and rocks, she crashed into the water with a familiar splash, one that chilled him with success and finality. He watched her corpse roll over torpidly and sink beneath the water, until the reflection of her pale skin and light clothes was concealed within the lake's depths.
He whistled an old tune as he rowed back to shore--The Mariner's Hymn. He found it almost never failed to soothe him, or subdue the paranoia. Upon arrival, he dragged the rowboat to a nearby spot amongst the pumpkins where he'd parked his truck.
Still whistling gayly, he drove down the street adjacent to the pumpkin patch. He knew that the road spanned for a great distance in only two directions, and he was headed towards the brighter half of the sky.