Infestation

Poison in the well

Falling asleep out in the middle of no where wasn't hard. The intense silence and peacefulness that came with this desolate sand hole was just what I needed. It was completely different from what Ive come to accept in the city. Instead of our usual quiet nights with the occasional dog barking in the back, now Patrol units filled the streets at night. Slowly driving up and down every street, announcing on a megaphone " we are here to help, serve and protect you this is for your well-being." And helicopters started to filled the skies instead of the stars. They would fly lowly overhead, following the patrollers with their spot lights out and ready to detect any movement. That wasn't exactly my idea of a sweet night time lullaby. Falling asleep out here was easy, waking up was the hard part. Mostly because Ricky my aunts rooster would decide to perched on the window sill and welcome the morning sun...outside my window...every fucking morning, giving me a mini heart attack to start my day. I've always been a very heavy sleeper, it would take my mom everything she had to get me ready for school before. But as things started to get worst in the city I found my sleep patterns changing. I started to sleep less and just take mini nap breaks through out the day. I would take a nap in front of the t.v, at the dinner table, sometimes even standing up. Just before they closed the schools down they integrated a new program, where instead of recesses we had " mind breaks."  After my 2 week in the program I started to notice my sleep changing. So instead of your typical playgrounds with kids playing 4 square and tether ball. Running around playing freeze tag or basketball. The idea of being interactive and engaging outside was now seemed as unsanitary, unhealthy and unsafe for the children and elderly. And so a "new idea" of controlled group engaging was born. The  school board, just before the cities "shit"-uation happened, got some funding for a new government program that gave the schools these portables where we had our "mind breaks." They we're your typical school portables except completely metal. The shiniest, chromiest silver you've ever seen. Reflective beyond belief. The girls loved the fact it was the perfect mirror, for full outfits inspections and the boys liked redirecting the reflective sun beams into each others eyes. Before going in they had us stand in a straight single file line, and would check our temperature. We sat in groups of 6-10 and sat, side by side in front of a huge canvas screen and watched other kids play on the screen. We would watch them run, laugh, play, all the shit we were suppose to be doing as kids, we were instead forced to watch other kids on a projection screen play instead. Sometimes the videos had the kids eye blocked out. Sometimes the video was the kids playing but with no audio. Sometimes it was both (those were the scariest.) Worst yet we had to watch and sit still the whole time. If you moved or even laughed along with the other kids on the screen you were scolded. I guess the new recess idea worked because with in minutes of the video starting we would become instantaneously tired. Of course it took a couple of weeks in the actual program to get to that point but after awhile it wasn't really that bad...and somehow even started to seem fun. My morning routine was different now. Instead of running to school in the morning, I was cooking breakfast and tending the chickens. In the afternoon instead of walking home with friends and hitting the local get-n-go for cheap snacks before doing homework or eating dinner, now I was preparing the dry desert sand in an attempt to have a vegetable garden ready to show my parents when they got released...and at night instead of watching late night scary movies that kept me up way past my bedtime...my nights now were consumed by ideas of returning back to the city, breaking into the "containment centers" somehow, and finding my parents, someway...but most nights honestly I would just lay in bed, looking straight up at the paint chipping off the ceiling and wondering what the fuck I was still hoping and fighting for. Huevos rancheros we're a specialty of mine and my aunt loved the way I made them. I made them like my mom used to. A little bit of salt, lots of chorizo pure deliciousness. And while my aunt would leave the plate clean, Humberto didn't care of the house filling up with the spicy air that messed with his sinuses. He would repeatedly sneeze and fart and run out the side door and sit on the cold concrete steps, panting in the desert heat. "Tia I'm going to feed the chickens" I yelled at my aunt as I was walking out the side door making sure to step over Humberto who choose to sit on the first step right outside the door. " be careful mijo" my aunt said removing her respiratory mask. She rarely used it, but some days the heat would be unbearable, even for me and would cause her to become more sluggish and make it harder for her to get around. Seeing her, especially on those days, were hard for me, because if she died I really would have no one. Besides Humberto and Ricky my aunt had 2 chickens. Marisol and Juanita, and 1 bull Roberto. I grew quite fondly of the animals surprisingly fast considering I vowed to never own another one after what happened in the city after the great vaccine war. The animals wether domesticated or not were said to be the carriers of the disease that caused this wide spread pandemic. The animals were being euthanized left and right. And anyone that interfered was imprisoned. Nekko was my red nose pit bull mix. He was beautiful. A sausage roll of a dog wide as hell and muscular as fuck but the kindest baby around. They started with what was considered " trigger breeds." Breeds of dogs that were thought to be already aggressive and there fore more sustainable to carrying the disease naturally. Bullshit. Having these new farm animals around made the time go by faster and kept me entertained for most of the day, if I wasn't plotting revenge or in the garden I was with the animals. Both hens were your average white egg layers. They got use to me fairly quick because I made sure to have a treat for them every time I would let them out. There cage was right behind the cabin up against my outside wall. Hence Rickys favorite spot to crow. It was a small chicken house, off the floor about a foot and wrapped in chicken wire. A little cut flap for the door and a piece of twisted wire for the latch. I would unwire it stick my hand inside and click my tongue. They would watch curiously, hesitated,look at each other, twitch their head and would come slowly come up at first. It than got to the point where I would click my tongue before even reaching their little coop and they would start cooing and flapping their wings anxiously. I wiped the corn dust from my hands onto my jeans and secured the wire latch to the chicken wire so the hens could come in and out as they pleased. I watched them peck and scratch at the ground for a little bit before making my way over to the vegetable garden. I hadn't gotten much done. To be honest I didn't think the fucking ground was going to be so hard to dig thru. My aunt and uncle bought this farm 25 yrs ago. With dreams of making it in to a beautiful bed and breakfast. A 125 acre farm styled, cozy cabin, bed and breakfast where you had the option of going horse back riding, shooting guns or swimming in the 30 acre spring feed lake. There were no horses, there was no shooting range, and there sure as hell wasn't a damn lake. Dreams. Just dreams my aunt and uncle had at the times. And what's so wrong with that. Big dreams or small dreams every one has a right to dream. It was this hope that still resided here that made me hopeful at having a successful vegetable garden. But really I had no idea what i was doing or where to start because I didn't even have a damn shovel. The only gardening tool my aunt hand was a hand trowel. A tiny navy blue rubber handle hand trowel. I thought if I could at least dig out one row, one row would be good to grow corn or green beans. And I didn't have to grow too much just enough to for my aunt and myself. I wanted the garden close enough to the cabin so I could use water from inside to water it. The well on the property never had any water to begin with it dried up years before my aunt purchased it. So I was going to fill a bucket and water the garden as needed. The plan was to finish digging out the well that was on the property, into a big lake. That would've been nice especially now. I could feel the sweat bead up on my head and roll down my neck. My clothes were sticking to me now and making it extra hard to do the stab and chip method of digging I was doing. I stopped only because something from that low angle caught my eye. It was at the base of the well. The well was about 300 feet in front of me. And I could see what seem to be water coming from the bottom! "Oh shit!" I exclaimed as I started to run in the direction of the well. My boots slide from under me and I landed on my knee at first. Instant pain and ripped my jeans a little but I was too excited to care. Water! There was water in the well! I managed to get both feet under me, stand and run. I ran so hard and fast i could feel my boots glide along the dusty ground. Rolling over an occasional pebble and almost tripping. My arms pinned down to my sides to maximize speed as it's a proven concept in cartoons. My clothes once sticky and glued onto me, flowing loosely now allowing the wind to cool me down instantly, my skin felt cooled and refreshed even though I'm running in the desert under the midday blazing sun. Water for my aunt, water for the animals, water for the farm this was it! I could feel the tides changing I could see the lake now. Shiny beautiful majestic. I could see myself jumping in again and again. Head first,back flips, canon balls all off this dock I was going to make with the tools I didn't have, but WHO CARED...we had water! But when I was about 10 feet from the well, the water seemed strange. It was thick. I mean really fucking thick. And shiny. It looked like it was thick like syrup or sap and shiny like silver. It was pouring out between where the Adobe plaster had worn off. Seeping thru the uneven cracks and crevices any opening was now succumbed to this silver syrup. It rolled down the sides of the well slowly. It dripped off itself like thick molten lava. The silvery sap was such a stark difference to the red soil it made me stopped in my tracks...I walked over and tried to get a better look. I held onto the wooden poles that held the well bucket, pushing on it first to make sure it'll hold my weight. I did, I got on my tippy toes which is hella hard in boots and looked inside. This strange thick liquid was gurgling and bubbling, and giving off some steam. I leaned back quick, the vapor from the steam didn't allow me to look longer, and it smelled like hot metal. Like when you turn on a heater or leave an iron on for to long. I grabbed a handful of sandy pebbles and dropped them in one by one in to the sappy ooze. A little puff of steam is all that remained as they hit the silvery sap.  It swallowed the pebbles up slowly. And eventually dissolved them. I've seen this liquid before. Mr. Spock our science teacher was a very eccentric teacher and one of my favorites. He would go out of his way to illustrate whatever point he was trying to make. And only spoke through hyperboles, metaphors and examples. One day he walked in, broke a thermometer over his desk poured the silvery contents out and said " this is mercury. If in fact we are made up of decomposition soil than we should by theory be able to react with it in its raw natural state at any giving time." He was one of the first teachers to be let go due to his "undesirable" "unconventional" teaching methods and philosophies. " Fuck me" I thought "their poisoning our wells."