The Field by Tracy Richardson

Author:Tracy Richardson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Luminis Books
Published: 2013-10-14T21:00:00+00:00

TONIGHT I’M DRIVING my Dad’s Audi, which is an improvement over the minivan, but not by much, as it’s about a thousand years old. Still, it is a German-made sedan. Renee and I have the windows down and I’ve got some low-key driving music playing. Instead of taking the highway north to the wind farm, I decided to go the scenic route on the back roads. We pass through tiny one-stop towns with only a gas station and a quick mart and sometimes a flea market, and I wonder who lives there and what do they do to make a living or for fun. It’s at least half an hour to get to the nearest drugstore, let alone a movie theater or restaurant.

On either side of the road are fields of dry cornstalks with ears of corn still attached, like the kind people put by their doors to decorate for Halloween, and soybean fields turning from green to gold. Some of the trees are starting to turn orange and red, and goldenrod grows in swathes along the side of the road.

“The fields and sky are really beautiful here,” Renee says, interrupting my thoughts. “The sky is so huge, like an enormous blue dome, and the clouds are amazing to watch.”

“There isn’t much to block your view, that’s for sure. It’s pretty flat up here, not hilly like in the southern part of the state. But you’re right, it is beautiful.” A flock of birds flies overhead, looking like a swiftly moving grey cloud. Several minutes pass as the birds flow by in a continuous stream. There must be thousands of birds moving together, migrating south. “It’s too bad, what they said on the field trip, about the wind turbines interfering with bird migrations. I guess there’s always a downside, even with something good.”

“Yes, but I think interfering with bird migrations and some ground vibrations are pretty minor drawbacks when you compare it to the pollution created by burning coal and oil. That probably kills more birds anyway,” Renee says indignantly. I’m preaching to the choir here.

We round a bend in the road and the wind turbines rise up from the farmland before us. There are dozens of them spaced out evenly across the fields; enormous white sentinels soaring into the sky. Somehow they always seem alien to me, like they are visitors from another planet or giant transmitters sending messages into space. Each tower is topped by three curved blades, like a child’s whirligig, and they appear to be moving slowly in circles when, in fact, they are whizzing around at 80 to 120 miles an hour. They move in a sort of choreographed dance. I don’t get why some people consider them eyesores. To me they seem majestic and almost awe-inspiring.

I pull over into a small park with a playground in an unnamed town on the country road. We sit side by side on the top of a wooden picnic table to one side of the swing set. Renee rests her hand on my knee and I pick it up and hold it between my hands.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.