Thomasville

Introduction

The relationship between a farmer and the land is complicated. It is a relationship based on labour and blind trust. The farmer works for the land, watering it with blood, sweat, and tears. In return, he receives his daily bread. Dust to dust, ashes to ash. Farmers feel a bond with their land, similar to that shared between mother and child. A child trusts their mother will provide for them, and farmers have trust that they will receive the fruits of their labour.

The citizens of Thomasville wander the streets like orphaned children. Thomasville was once a small farming town, but ever since the drought, the population had dwindled. While the little town had never been a metropolis; It had possessed successful businesses, a schoolhouse, a town hall and a library.

Now all lay emptied. When the crops failed, few had enough money to finance the town businesses. The town hall lay desolate, as there was nothing to discuss. The school teacher was one of the first to leave town as the town could no longer pay for her services. The library had to be locked as desperate townspeople had been stealing and reselling the books. The travelling doctor never passed through anymore as no one could afford his treatments.

Children too young to understand their circumstances played in the dust and the dilapidated buildings blissfully unaware of the surrounding suffering. Older children gathered anxiously, keenly aware of their hopeless situation. The only buildings still crowded were the church and the taproom.

Living in Thomasville was like living in the eye of a storm. Somehow both serene and chaotic; equal parts beautiful and destructive. Flat plains coupled with mountain ranges. A young painter had once travelled down to Thomasville to paint the landscape. People had been eager to invite the young artist to their home and to treat him with a fine dinner. Ever since the dust storms had hit the area; You would have to search half the state to find a man willing to give up the scraps from his table.

The animosity between friends, families and neighbours grew like a cancerous tumour replacing community with division. Even the church which, had been a haven for the misfits and socialites, was now akin to troubled waters hiding hostility and resentment beneath the waves.

The sheep have been set apart from the goats. If you had entered the town a decade prior, it would have been difficult to find a man, woman or child who did not believe in a just God. These days, it was all too easy. That is not to say that the town was at a loss for believers, either. Many still held up their convictions like protective shields daring to have hope, even as the world turned against them.

When every breath of arid dust burns the lungs, every sip of water feels like a precious gift, and the faces of the young and the old are left blistered from the heat and the wind; Men start to realize where their loyalties lay.