Open Writing

*
Near Middlesbro
Southern Iowa
June, 2034

The McKluskey farm lies near the Des Moines River, close to where it flows out of Lake Red Rock, southeast of the state capital, on its way to the Mississippi. The town of Middlesbro (Pop. 2500), is to the west of the farm, across the plains of corn, alfalfa, and wheat, which now, in early summer, are approaching their moment of truth, their time of harvest.

The land hereabouts is mostly flat or, at most, gently rolling, the result of the last of the ice sheets of 25,000 years ago which once reached all the way south to present-day Des Moines. The day now dawning seems ordinary, little or no different from the past dozen or so; clear skies, light breeze from the south holding the promise of another warm, pleasant mid-western day.

All in all, an undramatic beginning to what will turn out to be a day of thunder, presaging momentous events that will cause the Earth to shake and the very fabric of space to tremble.

* * * *

Hank McKluskey, 42, a man not given to hysteria, made his way across his number one field, the sound of his ATV muted in the early morning freshness. It was 6.15 am, the time of day he liked best, before anyone else got out and about, and he was on one of his regular inspections of the crops. He did this a couple of times a week at least; more often as harvest approached. After he’d looked at the corn in field number three, he’d head back to the house. His wife, Carol, would be in the kitchen by then, the house fragrant with the aroma of bacon, eggs, toast and coffee.

Hank steered the ATV down one of the access paths that ran between fields of corn, wider than the space between rows, when he was felt something was different, not right. Even though he could hear little over the ATV’s motor, instinct said him something wasn’t right, something was missing. Something familiar was missing. What the hell was it?

He stopped the ATV, turned off the motor, and listened. Silence; it was the silent. Normally there were sounds of birds and insects, small chirps, clicks, and buzzes, quiet, but there; a background of country sounds.

The silence unnerved him. He had grown up on this land and took over when his father retired, and he learned early on to pay attention to his surroundings. This silence meant that something had happened overnight, something he knew he was heading toward, and that caused his apprehension.
He started the ATV again and continued down the path. Looking ahead, the access path stretched as far as he could see, dwindling into the distance, narrowing in his perspective until the sides of the rows of corn seemed to meet in the distance, like parallel lines at infinity, over that, blue sky. Then he noticed he saw only blue sky. He gunned the ATV a little, then slowed as he approached a clearing. He knew every square foot of his farm, and there should be no clearing here; it was not there two days ago when he had last inspected this field.

He stopped, stepped down off the ATV, and walked slowly to the end of the path and stood in his Sears jeans, blue denim shirt, and John Deere cap and stared. “Oh, you goddamn sons of bitches,” he said slowly.

The clearing before him was once like the rest of the field; sturdy, green stands of good Iowa corn just over seven feet tall, but no more. Now, it was flat, and appeared to be a perfect circle, with tracks leaving it at two points around its circumference. A crop circle; kids playing jokes with his crops. Just recently he’d watched a program on the National Geographic TV channel about the two guys who confessed to doing the same thing in Great Britain. Probably the kids saw the same thing and thought they’d try it.

What was it that Tom Wilson, the English immigrant who bought the general store in Middlesbro a few years back, had called them? Oh yeah, wankers; a pair of fucking wankers.

The TV piece told how they had claimed to have done it: flat boards tethered to a stake and walked on, round and round until the corn was flattened. The program said that the two hoaxers hadn’t reproduced the same effect as some of the circles; something about some of the corn stalks being broken and others not. And they talked about that that most sites had been hit only at night. Copycats, Hank decided. Or, more accurately, vandalism. Wherever those jerks hit, they were costing the farmers income on their crops.

Hank walked a little way out into the clearing and stopped, hands on hips. Well, he wasn’t going to let them get away with it. He’d catch them and they’d pay. Then he paused, remembering that there were also stories on the news and in the papers about these things starting to appear all over the country. That was annoying, and a bit puzzling.

With a last look at the circle, with its discomforting perfection, Hank got back on his ATV and headed back to the house, trying to shake off the eerie feeling that his intellectual self laughed at. He’d tell Sheriff Collins about it, he decided and get some action.