friday night

[thesunatmidnite]

i was driving too fast on US-50 trying to get to my grandmother's farmhouse. the car was swerving off the road and into patches of forest but with no consequences; i was still alive. i drove but had minimal control. the view kept toggling from my driver's seat to a side view, showing the car threading between tree trunks. it was a white SUV. somehow i made it to mom-mom's house. then, the next day, i came downstairs and ethan and luke were there. they are my architecture TAs. my grandmother was there too. i sat in the brown chair that faces the window and pointed up at the ceiling, excited to comment on the wooden beams that spanned the living room ceiling. but as i pointed up, i realized that they were gone. you could tell they had been there because there were marks on the sides of the walls where they would've entered and continued. ethan seemed to think this was funny and crinkled his eyes when he laughed like he always does. instead of thick wooden square beams, a warped piece of plywood hung awkwardly from the ceiling. ethan stepped on my chair and reached up to it. he was able to spin it; it was hanging there more like a sculpture than a structural component. i didn't know what to make of this. mom-mom said they had the beams removed a few years ago but i guess i didn't notice until now. we walked outside because i was excited to show them the farm; it is a big deal when your personal and academic lives converge. there was a tour going on for young hispanic children about farming and we joined that group and walked up the sandy lane. instead of scrubby fields, there was thick brush and taller trees. the children were scared of wolves because it was overcast, so i squatted down and told them slowly to not be afraid. i said there were only pollos and perros here, but when i made the sound of a perro (woof!), they thought i said "wolf" and got even more scared. we kept walking. there were chickenhouses, but in the back a huge factory had been built. my farm had turned into an industrial operation. thick corrugated aluminum farm buildings supported tall exhaust towers that spewed smoke (the cause of the dark sky). the chickenhouses were abandoned and newer, more efficient buildings were all built in one complex in the back. semi-trucks were pulling in and out. i don't know why my uncle would choose to run his farm this way. i looked behind me to check on the hispanic tour group, and i was horrified. some of the kids had sections of their skulls removed, and unfamiliar men were stuffing handfuls of dirty dirt into the empty caverns where brains once sat. the kids were completely conscious, and stared ahead like statues. i turned to ethan and luke and tried to explain that this wasn't how i remembered it, that this was all wrong, but it didn't seem to work.

in other news: man, am i glad to be done with physics