When the Dark Night Seems Endless

 

Author: Saavik

Rating:  R

Warnings:  If I tell you it will spoil the story. But I will say this: it’s got squeaky in it. Lots of squeaky.

 

 

Prologue

 

I’m going to tell you a story. Why?  Why would I pour out all my hopes, dreams, fears, and motives?  Simple, because I have to.  Because I can’t keep quiet anymore.  I’m so tired of not saying anything, of being ashamed, of being scared.  I’m not scared anymore and I’ll be damned if I’m going to be ashamed.  He should be ashamed, or more like they should.

            So what am I talking about?  My life, that’s what.  My lousy, stinking life.  Everyone has one.  Everyone loses one, or more in some cases, but who’s counting?  This one, however, was a bit different.

            At the risk of sounding like Julie Andrews: let's start at the very beginning.

            I was born in a little town that no one knows.  A very small example of the American Midwest.  In other words, hell on earth.  Everyone is too dumb or too lazy to learn anything, and the most checked-out book in the local library is “Green Eggs and Ham.”  Book reports in English classes all follow the movie and the teachers never notice.  Trust me, I did grow up there, remember?  My high school had, and still has, a drive-your-tractor-to-school-day. The whole back two-thirds of the parking lot fills up with John Deer tractors and those huge-ass combines with the spiky things.  Carhartts are the coat of choice and the boys all wear Dr. Martin steel–toed work boots.  Everywhere you look is some damn farm implement logo.  AGCO, New Holland, Case-IH, Hartney, Massey Ferguson -- you name it, they have a hat for it.

            But that’s not what caused my downfall, my swan dive, my decent into impurity; no, it wasn’t the stench of fresh spread manure, nor the ever present Round-up in the water supply.  What caused me to lose my innocence in the eyes of the world, to irrefutably topple the pillar on which I stood, was one little, almost inconsequential fact:  I HATE CORN.

            God, I hated corn.  Everywhere you looked in that insignificant fucking town, corn corn corn. Every once in a while soybeans, but miles and miles of corn. Wide open corn.

            God Almighty, all there fucking was, was corn.  Still like that, too.  I remember picking corn at recess and throwing it in the hallway at school.  They made us stop wearing coats from room to room so we couldn’t hide the kernels in the pockets.  I used to go across the neighbor‘s field, looking out for his random shotgun blasts, and pick up the corn the tractor missed.  I’d bundle it up in sugar maple leaves and tie the packages up with grass. The neighbor girl, Autumn, and I had this little pretend feud going on.  We’d hurl rocks, sticks, and my little corn grenades at each other over the river, or really the creek.  Make sure you pronounce that correctly, now.  Crik, not creeeek.  

            Going for a walk meant seeing corn. Driving meant seeing corn.  Hell, school meant corn.  Two years of chemistry class with twice-a-week corn experiments.

            Get up and look at corn.  Sleep and dream of corn.  Corn on the cob, corn tassels, cornhusks, cornrows,  corn corn corn corn corn. Indian corn, yellow corn, white corn, mixed corn, sweet corn, and baby corn.  American Pride, Bloody Butcher, Little Boy Blue, and Red Stalker.  Bojangles, Mystique, Trinity, and Absolute.

            One time we tried to take a short cut to the library through the FFA (Future Farmers of America) field.  I accidentally dropped my Biology homework, on corn, in the middle and the wind just whipped it all around. It took three hours to find my papers in the rows. We were getting frantic and my uncle was due to pick me up at the library any second, so we started running.  Do you know how it feels to run through corn?  To feel the leaves slap at you, to sometimes cut you?  To not be able to see the other side no matter how hard you try? You get lost in there.  And it’s getting darker and darker.  You only hear those June bugs and the rustle of the stalks.  It’s mighty intimidating, let me tell you.  It seems like the blasted field is endless; the darkness seems endless…

            Of course, every once in a while, as a kid playing in those tall plants, you find the ‘special’ rows in the middle. The kind they look for by helicopter so the local sheriff can dry the harvest and sell it on the side.  We didn’t talk about those much. 

            Corn corn corn corn corn.  Everywhere, there was corn.  It spilled out of the harvest carriers onto the roads. It caught fire in the drying towers; it grew in the damn flowerbeds.  Corn corn corn corn corn.

            It should come as no surprise then that when I had my chance I was only to willing to leave.  Anything to not see those waving green leaves and golden tassels.  But somehow all I wanted after I escaped was that botanical nuisance.  So here I am, still in the nightmare known as Indiana.  Here I am telling you my story.  See, it’s not just about my loss, my damnation.  We are truly twins in our perdition, you and I.  My saga is meaningless without you.  I want you to see our fall from grace.  I want you to experience what it is like to be lost in this darkness.  This story is about finding  the end of the cornfield.  Perhaps it can teach you something, if you chose to let it speak.

 

 

 

~ Assai