Dust Bowl
The earth parched, great rivets where
the last rains had come had carved out holes in the dried dirt. Soil rose and
blew across empty fields filling the air with a fine powder that filled the
nostrils with fine particles and left a layer of grime over everything. The sky
was dark with the winds of change as static electricity built in the air and
the air kept raising the land in to small funnels pummelling across the earth
raising more and more loam into the lungs and into everything including the
remaining food. The beast whips higher and higher ripping across the plains
killing animals filling them with sand. Nothing seemed to grow in the once
fertile plains. Bellies ached with growing hunger. It seems the end of the
world when we can’t see two feet in front of our faces and the internet is gone
and travel is impossible.
“We don’t have enough rain,” grandfather
complained.
“You’re a fool father. The Earth takes
back her planet we’re about to flicker out,” father sniped.
“At least I didn’t raise a boy that sits
with his nose in a book,” grandfather exclaimed then stormed away to his room.
I grew angry this wasn't fair; I just scoured the history books
look for a reason that had happened before, but with millenniums of history to
scour it would be hard to pinpoint a time when this had occurred before.
“I’ve
got it.” I cried, “This happened once in the nineteen hundred and thirties. The
government responded by getting farmers to rotate crops that planting trees and
shrubs around your fields and this helps in keeping down the crust or upper
soil from flying.”
“Where are we to get these shrubs?
Everything is dying,” my father responded.
“We can use the Christmas farm trees to
block the farm,” grandfather commented coing back in the room.
“But that’s all the stock we have left,”
father complained.
Despite my father’s complaint we dig up
the trees put them in the truck taking them to the edge of the property our
faces covered lest we breathe in the silt. We spend hours planting the trees
using some remaining water to feed them. The dust has stopped somewhat by the
trees and we are sheltered, but grandfather passes away.
Father and I pray hard we will be
redeemed and saved by the trees. Morning comes and the air around us is clear
our own oasis, the sun breaking through.
We begin growing food and soon our bellies are full again. Rain comes
and washes away the soil and dust. We venture forth and find neighbours have
perished far and wide. The world as we know is truly gone as if a nuclear bomb
has ended it all. We travel to the city and I find her, Arusha who has
survived on her intelligence and ability to scrounge. We are of different cultures, but she is intelligent, a former
librarian with books and she can cook. She soon becomes my bride. Life goes on
as we share our joy with children. God is good.
©Sheilagh Lee April 9, 2018
