Excerpt From "Rain"
The Insomniac
She said to me, “Come find me when it rains. We will dance in puddles and finally we will sleep.”
And I thought, Okay, it is spring. By a lake. In a really moist town. Only a matter of days.
Three weeks later, the ground is cracking and I haven’t slept in days. Usually, I push myself to the brink of exhaustion, where a dizzy spell or a head rush, knocks me out and I sleep for forty-eight hours straight. Then the process continues and the crops continue to die.
I feel the town is in a panic. Since the Berkley farm went bust and we lost the upper crust, Starling hasn’t been the same place. Tucked away in a pocket of Indiana that everyone drives by, but few people visit, Starling has been where, through the example of others, rich retirees have come to die. At a time, not even four years ago, Starling was half over-accommodated retirees, a quarter thriving to semi-thriving land and farm owners, and a quarter of laborers to provide for the upper fifty percent.
Every person knew their place. Regardless of the hierarchy, everyone knew everyone. We shared the same picnic tables for Fourth of July. Day to day business passed so unceremoniously that most people failed to notice that slowly, and somewhat painfully, they were disappearing.
Starling is a city dangerously close to Indianapolis. I say dangerously because most of the residents, then and now, assume they are close enough to a big city without ever having to visit it. In a sense, no one seems to think they are missing anything. Though some people work in Indy and sleep in Starling, most people live in Starling and are buried there as well. So certain individuals’ homes are full of gadgets and broadband connections, plasma screen TV’s and brand new SUVs or hybrid cars. Adjacent homes may still have a black and white television, because TV is only used if a president has been shot or skyscrapers crumble.
To that effect, Starling is a city that has never known what exactly it wants to be. Are a retirement community? A farming community? A town of skilled laborers?
The only consensus anyone has come to is that Starling, regardless of activity, is a slow-moving town. Almost as if city officials kept every speed limit below forty just to set the tone of day to day.
For the past three weeks, though, the movement in this town has been non-existent. Melting. This summer we have hit all time high temperatures and haven’t even collected a quarter of an inch of precipitation. Apparently after only the third day of this wave, we broke a record and now Starling, finally will be in a book somewhere.
The Berkeley crops, long since unhealthy were now brittle and couldn’t even support weeds or wildflowers. The ground had become dust and small animals and crayfish lay in the sun, baking into deterioration.
When it was thriving, if anyone could honestly brand Starling as thriving, the centerpiece of town was the Berkley farm; a sprawling two-hundred and seventy acre habitat, with room enough for crops and cattle. Corn stalks, taller than any resident flooded the landscape from left to right. Because the Berkeleys slowly pirated this land over a period of fifty years, they weren’t able to expand outwardly quite as they would have liked. At times their property line veers West for ten or so acres, then shoots North and back East, adding a sloppy rectangle of Corn and soy to the ground plan. If an aerial shot was taken above from an airplane, one would see a veritable checkerboard of land. Anything dark green and lush belonged to the Berkleys. Anything yellow or concrete gray belongs to the other residents of town; save a ten acre expanse on the northern side of town, which belong to the Huntley-Meyer family. Their ten acres, in a line and perfectly kept, has always remained the same.
I remember being twelve and flying over the town in a crop-duster. I could barely hear a word my uncle George was screaming at me, so I could only follow his finger as he pointed.
“-a checker-board.”
“-ley farm.”
“Chess-pieces really.”
I peered down at the ground and viewed retirement pre-fad homes, surrounded by corn, about to be swallowed. I saw two and three story tenements full of economy rooms and studios for the people still employed at the elevator and two remaining factories. Then the Berkley house. The queen. Standing center waiting to covet and plunder another square.
Checkmate, I thought, even though I had no clue how the game was played.
She said to me, “Come find me when it rains. We will dance in puddles and finally we will sleep.”
And I thought, Okay, it is spring. By a lake. In a really moist town. Only a matter of days.
Three weeks later, the ground is cracking and I haven’t slept in days. Usually, I push myself to the brink of exhaustion, where a dizzy spell or a head rush, knocks me out and I sleep for forty-eight hours straight. Then the process continues and the crops continue to die.
I feel the town is in a panic. Since the Berkley farm went bust and we lost the upper crust, Starling hasn’t been the same place. Tucked away in a pocket of Indiana that everyone drives by, but few people visit, Starling has been where, through the example of others, rich retirees have come to die. At a time, not even four years ago, Starling was half over-accommodated retirees, a quarter thriving to semi-thriving land and farm owners, and a quarter of laborers to provide for the upper fifty percent.
Every person knew their place. Regardless of the hierarchy, everyone knew everyone. We shared the same picnic tables for Fourth of July. Day to day business passed so unceremoniously that most people failed to notice that slowly, and somewhat painfully, they were disappearing.
Starling is a city dangerously close to Indianapolis. I say dangerously because most of the residents, then and now, assume they are close enough to a big city without ever having to visit it. In a sense, no one seems to think they are missing anything. Though some people work in Indy and sleep in Starling, most people live in Starling and are buried there as well. So certain individuals’ homes are full of gadgets and broadband connections, plasma screen TV’s and brand new SUVs or hybrid cars. Adjacent homes may still have a black and white television, because TV is only used if a president has been shot or skyscrapers crumble.
To that effect, Starling is a city that has never known what exactly it wants to be. Are a retirement community? A farming community? A town of skilled laborers?
The only consensus anyone has come to is that Starling, regardless of activity, is a slow-moving town. Almost as if city officials kept every speed limit below forty just to set the tone of day to day.
For the past three weeks, though, the movement in this town has been non-existent. Melting. This summer we have hit all time high temperatures and haven’t even collected a quarter of an inch of precipitation. Apparently after only the third day of this wave, we broke a record and now Starling, finally will be in a book somewhere.
The Berkeley crops, long since unhealthy were now brittle and couldn’t even support weeds or wildflowers. The ground had become dust and small animals and crayfish lay in the sun, baking into deterioration.
When it was thriving, if anyone could honestly brand Starling as thriving, the centerpiece of town was the Berkley farm; a sprawling two-hundred and seventy acre habitat, with room enough for crops and cattle. Corn stalks, taller than any resident flooded the landscape from left to right. Because the Berkeleys slowly pirated this land over a period of fifty years, they weren’t able to expand outwardly quite as they would have liked. At times their property line veers West for ten or so acres, then shoots North and back East, adding a sloppy rectangle of Corn and soy to the ground plan. If an aerial shot was taken above from an airplane, one would see a veritable checkerboard of land. Anything dark green and lush belonged to the Berkleys. Anything yellow or concrete gray belongs to the other residents of town; save a ten acre expanse on the northern side of town, which belong to the Huntley-Meyer family. Their ten acres, in a line and perfectly kept, has always remained the same.
I remember being twelve and flying over the town in a crop-duster. I could barely hear a word my uncle George was screaming at me, so I could only follow his finger as he pointed.
“-a checker-board.”
“-ley farm.”
“Chess-pieces really.”
I peered down at the ground and viewed retirement pre-fad homes, surrounded by corn, about to be swallowed. I saw two and three story tenements full of economy rooms and studios for the people still employed at the elevator and two remaining factories. Then the Berkley house. The queen. Standing center waiting to covet and plunder another square.
Checkmate, I thought, even though I had no clue how the game was played.
posted by Ben at
9:54 AM
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