Two Stories

The first story begins with two people — a young man and woman — unloading some equipment from the bed of a pickup truck. I mean obviously the story began some time before this but the specific starting point we’re picking here is a dirt road next to a wheat field in the middle of the night just outside Somewhere, Nebraska. “You’re being too loud,” she tells him after he drops the garden roller to the ground. “There’s nobody around to listen,” he whisper-yells back. They walk twenty feet or so down the road until they find a good entry point into the field. She has the surveyor’s reel and a wooden rod, he has the garden roller and a flashlight. When they start into the field he turns the flashlight on. She hisses at him to turn it off. “There. Is. Nobody. Around. To. See. Us,” he hisses back. “Why the hell are we doing this?” he asks. “Please just be nice.” “This is stupid.” “It’ll be cool. It’ll be on the news.” “The news doesn’t give a shit about crop circles anymore.” “Please just be nice to me,” she asks again. This is a story you’ve heard a million times — it’s a story about two people who don’t know any better trying to keep a dying thing alive. They pick a spot in the field and she plants the rod into the ground. He ties the surveyor’s reel to the rod about six inches from the ground. They walk away from the rod with the tape until they measure it out at fifty feet, and hook it to the garden roller. Then they walk together, slowly, low to…