Finding the Daisies

Chapter 1

I was walking down a dirt path in the middle of a boxed up division in Indiana. Where I remember just two years ago, there was a large acre field where corn, bean, and wheat use to grow. I remember sometimes going and running barefoot through the tall corn that soured over my head in my grandfather's fields. The beautiful green grass that used to grow almost everywhere. With its soft comfort on my barefeet, and woods where deer and bunnies used to room in the hiding of trees.   

That was all ruined about two years ago. When North Korea planned a secret bombed attack on the United States. It Hit New York, and most of the East coast. It also hit Tennessee and  Alabama. Well when it hit Tennessee and Alabama the people that survived, and there was a good amount that did, they couldn't live in there own state anymore. Kentucky wouldn't allow them to live in there state unless they had a relative they could live with. So there next choice was Indiana. Indiana accepted them in. The Tennessean's grabbed any house, apartment, or hotel room they could afford. Indiana people had to just sit back and watch the flood of people into their state.

When every living space was taken up people had no choice, but to sleep in the streets. I remember that bad time when I would be going into town with my mother and see people in the ditches on the side of the road with their families, a couple of little kids curled up against a park bench in the neighborhood park, or abandoned buildings would be broken into because they had no other choice. These people would have maybe a couple sleeping bags and little food as the only thing they owned. The representatives of Indiana started to see this as a very big problem.

They came up with a solution to the problem. They were going to tear down every field in Indiana to build "boxed divisions". They told us  one boxed divisions would take up one field. The boxed divisions were crowded with cement shelters that were very small two- story shelter houses. The bottom and top floors were about as big as a 12 by 12 foot room. That is as big as the average bedroom. In the fields they took combines and grounded out the crops and smoothed out the dirt. Then they started building the boxed divisions. So much pollution gathered in the air around the time of building the boxed divisions. Combines were everywhere and all the smoke was polluting the air. People tried to protest against it, but the government took it as a complaint against the new people in our state and they made it a law to never complain about the new people, if you did you got sent to jail. So the air continued to get polluted and no one could do anything against it. Other states isolated us away from them, because of how bad our state had gotten. We tried asking for help, but every state shot us down and stayed away from our disasters.  

Remembering this memory I look up at the gray sky. The sun used to shine so bright with its reds and oranges blazing, lighting up the world. Now the sky was always gray. Dark enough that during noon daytime even in homes with blinds open you still had to turn on lights or you couldn't see. You couldn't see storms come either because the gray clouds were as dark as storm clouds. When night came around it only got a little darker than what it is during the entire day. Sometimes on good days you can barely see the blurry rays of the sun come through the gray of pollution. Because of all the pollution nothing could really grow in Indiana anymore. Grass started dieing, and no one could grow a decent garden. Some young trees or weak trees died off, but most of them did stay if they weren't chopped down first. A lot of crimes and killing are happening, because a lot of people blame the new people for everything that's happened to Indiana. People that already lived in Indiana before the bombing started calling the people that came from Tennessee, Cowboys. The Tennessee people were angry at us, so they fired back with a nickname of, Indians. This spread like wildfire. Both sides accepted their new nicknames. So if you ever wanted to know if a person was a Cowboy or Indian you would simply ask them and with pride they answer you. But Cowboys and Indian would use each other's names for weapons, and would say the name bitterly like it was acid in their throats.

I was walking to my best friends house in the boxed division. She was kicked out of her home when the Cowboys came, because a family of cowboys offered the government more money than what my best friend, Naomi's parents were paying for it. She was throw out and her family stayed with mine until Naomi's family found a house for spare in a division. I was going to her house, because her mother used to be a teacher and when the economy got to poor to pay for schools, Naomi's mother smuggled some textbooks and took them home. Naomi and I take classes for about an hour every day.

I don't live too far away from the boxed division Naomi lives in. My family was lucky and no Cowboy seemed interested in our chicken ranch. We have a house up a hill. It's a two stories white ranch house. My father used to have many fields he owed until the Cowboy's came. He had a friend that got him a job in a factory so he didn't lose the farm. After the pollution hit badly it seemed that the only animals that survived in Indiana was horses and dogs, but you hardly ever see a horse because the government took them all and use them for the police force. Dogs got to expensive for a lot of people, so they let them loose to fend for them themselves. Very few people actually keep dogs as pets. Clothes also got bad. washer and dryer wasn't really an essential anymore, so people had to do it themselves. My mom tried her best to get my siblings and I clothes clean, but it got overwhelming for her. So she barely washed our clothes. I was currently in a very old pair of jeans that were too small and a t-shirt that had a rip in the side. I also had an old winter jacket that looked like it got ran over by a bike with muddy tires, and it had holes. But it was my only jacket.    

"Jetia!" I hear my friend yell as I round the corner of her house. I smile at her as I approach. Her dark skin and super curly black hair looked even darker with the clouds. Her green eyes were bouncing with something exciting. 

"Mom isn't feeling well today, so no lessons," Naomi doesn't like school much, so she was very pleased with this outcome. I actually didn't think school was that bad, so I don't mind our hour lessons.

"So what do you think we should do today?" I ask my friend. She gives me a big smile of pure mischievousness.

"It's a surprise," she tells me with the devilish smile."But you have to keep your eyes closed and follow me." I give her a curious look, but shut my eyes. I feel her grab my wrist and start guiding me.

"Okay, open your eyes." After a while of walking with Naomi talking on about boys in her boxed division, she finally told me to open my eyes. When I opened my eyes I started to see green stuff, but my vision was blurry. I started to get dizzy and my knees buckled, I fell back and felt the strong hands of someone catch me. Not Naomi.