Thursday, May 15, 2014

THEIRS TRULY

The farmer was unsatisfied.  An uneasiness pulsed in his ears.  Pushing buttons to harvest his crop emptied him.  It was not his.  He called it his from a habit that his ancestors left, who were proud of their tie to the Earth.  What pride had he?-- his seeds were not the Earth’s seeds.  The land wasn’t his--he mortgaged it to buy the Seeds.  After the Ashtun--Karinawa case everyone had to buy the Seeds.  Everyone would end up using them because the wind carried them everywhere--if it did not, a more human agent would.   Fighting meant he would end up like Uncle Sandy and he knew that he didn’t have the courage for that.
But there was an uneasiness between his ears.  He decided to take lunch--food was solace.
He walked back to his house. His wife was watching TV.  She said nothing when he entered. Why should she?  She was busy.  
He took out a loaf of bread. They began buying bread a year ago when her online business took off. No one had time to bake. But the farmer found he had no appetite for their bread. He threw it across the kitchen.  His wife did not move.  
Then looking at his field he realized that it was all their bread. If not one “them,” then another.  And since he lived on their bread he was theirs too, his molecules made of their Seeds. God did not give him life, they did.  And the uneasiness between his ears boiled over.
He could end it all. Right then he could end it all. Walking out of the house he slammed the door. His wife did not move.
He walked down to where the machines were mulling over the land gnashing at it. They could flatten him and then he could be his own. He stood there for a moment, staring at them work, and knew that he didn’t have the courage for that.
He stood there watching until the sun set. Then he turned around and went inside. He saw his wife still sitting before the TV and the loaf still sitting on the floor.  He picked it up, ripped the plastic from it, and shoved it down his throat.  It choked him, but it muffled whatever demon had possessed him.   

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