Notes From: Vale
The Seeds of Hope
It feels like a bad dream.
The news stories all name different cities, different people.
Yet, they’re so very familiar.
I remember when I first began noticing the collapse. I was on my way home from the farm I worked at, listening to the radio as my dad drove down the dusty roads to the small house we called home.
As we neared a small gas station, we noticed there was a road blockade with soldiers standing around. We could see a few of the soldiers standing on the back of a truck, loaded with bags of rice to give out to the people.
A woman walking away with a bag was knocked over by a man on a motorbike, while another grabbed the bag before it hit the ground and quickly jumped onto the back of the bike. They sped away as the crowd shouted in anger.
We watched as the woman tried to reason with the soldiers for another bag, but they shook their heads and ordered her away. Voices became angrier as the crowd rumbled, and I remember noticing the tension increase in the air. The soldiers stood more erect, hands tightening on their rifles. My father placed a hand on my shoulder as if to pull me back. The crowd became louder and more irate.
That’s when a man near the front was shoved back by a soldier, landing hard on the ground. Another man rushed forward to help and pushed the soldier out of the way. The soldier raised his rifle into the air, bringing the wooden stock down upon the mans head with a resounding thud.
Someone threw something. A rock? I couldn’t tell what it was, or where it came from. All I saw was something hurtling through the air and colliding with the soldier’s face as he stumbled backward. Then….
Gunshots.
The soldiers fired into the crowd as people screamed and ran. My father’s truck lurched forward, only to sputter and die in his haste to escape. I watched helplessly with a morbid fascination and fear as my father tried to restart the truck and people ran away while others fell to the ground.
We didn’t get rice that week. Or the next. The soldiers left and although we tried to help the injured, there was no medicine in our small community. The ones who didn’t die immediately later died from infections or internal bleeding. No ambulances came.
Things were never easy. I had went away to get an education and returned to find employment in our school. The gas prices became unaffordable. Food and commodities that were once so cheap now became impossible to afford, or more frequently, impossible to find.
The teachers left, tired of going weeks without pay. Kids stopped coming to school. My father worked delivering parts to factories and farms only to afford enough gas to work another day. There were lines of people waiting for hours to get food, only to find out that there was no more by the time they made it to the front.
Yet, I didn’t see it as the beginning of something. It was just another rough time in a rough life.
It all happened so slowly. The power was out more frequently until it was out more than it was on. The water stopped flowing in the same way, and when it did, it was soured and smelled. The prices increased little by little while the jobs disappeared one by one.
But it was the beginning. For many, it was the beginning of an end.
My father lost his job a few days later, and I didn’t go to work after that either. The busses were sporadic and unreliable, and the soldiers had become increasingly aggressive. It wasn’t safe to walk alone, and when my father couldn’t afford to transport me on his way to and from his own job, it became impossible for me to continue working.
I’d spend hours outside with my mother as we tended to her small garden. She taught me that as long as you can plant something, there’s still a future to believe in. Something to look forward to.
The warlords soon came, offering to save us from the tyrannical soldiers. They didn’t fool anyone. Still, we traded with them to survive, always careful.
When my aunt died from illness and lack of medication, we decided it was time to leave. There was nothing here anymore. Even my mothers garden had wilted after someone presumably dumped salt throughout the ground one night while we slept.
We scraped together enough money over the next few weeks to get a quarter tank of gas for the truck.
It wasn’t much, but it was enough to leave.
We were very careful, and very lucky. Endless nights sleeping in strange places, sometimes in a bed, most of the time on the ground.
No matter where we were, no matter what we lost, my mother always took the time to plant a seed. I didn’t understand it. Not then.
Why plant something when we will never return to this place?
Now I understand the importance of leaving behind whatever good you can. To make your mark on the world, to make it beautiful not for your own enjoyment, but for someone else’s.
When my mother’s cough worsened and she fell ill, she still took the time to water and tend to a small rosemary plant she carried in a small plastic cup. We planted it in the ground where we eventually buried her.
My father and I were the only ones that made it, leaving behind my mother and younger brother who went missing somewhere along the border. We looked for him, but there was no trace.
We hoped he would turn up eventually. Wherever he ended up, if he survived, I hope he found happiness.
Life in America was still difficult in it’s own way. I was fortunate enough to speak the language before arriving, but my father did not. I could only find menial jobs, and the immigration process was long and arduous.
But it was a better life, even though I would have given it all up to have my family whole again.
I was taking night classes and working two jobs when the cheap car I had bought finally broke down, leaving me stranded….and the events lead me to my beautiful, funny, compassionate wife.
There were always bigots and hate that would pop up from time to time, but for the most part, we were happy, and we began to start life anew.
I don’t recall which news story made me freeze. I just remember being overwhelmed with this fear that it had all been a dream, and I was back home, waiting for the moment someone killed me or we starved to death or died from sickness because we couldn’t afford medicine.
Then I realized it wasn’t back home they were talking about.
It was here.
I’m not a fighter.
I’m not a prophet.
But I can see the signs.
I’ve seen them all before.
I know where they lead.
I know how bad things can get.
So I tend to my garden.
Because as long as there is something growing, the world is not beyond saving.
Because those who do fight need energy to keep fighting.
Because planting is its own form of rebellion.
Because my mother taught me to make the world better where I can.
Because the world they want to burn down doesn’t mean death.
Some seeds only sprout once they’ve been touched by flame.
I’ve seen that too.
In people you would never suspect but who bloom from the ashes.
Because beauty can still grow.
Even if it starts in a hopeless place.
In a Solo cup.
With a handful of dirt.
And a woman who believed in tomorrow anyway.