Dust Bowl

                              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