Cornfield and Fog Dances
Nathaniel Tower

The fog stood tall amongst the withering corn stalks. Nearby, a sandy-haired boy and a burly man the age of the boy’s father crouched low like tigers, watching intently.
“Daddy, where does the fog come from?” the sandy-haired boy asked softly.
The burly man thought for a moment before answering. “It comes from water,” he finally said.
“What water? It hasn’t rained for weeks.”
Again the father pondered. “There’s still water when it doesn’t rain. It hides in the soil.”
“How does it get there?”
This time, the father spoke without hesitation. “The cornstalks weep and fill the ground with their salty tears.”
“Is that how the cornstalks survive the drought?” the boy asked, not knowing if he should believe his father. He knew now was no time for tall tales.
“Yes, the cornstalks feed themselves through the tears of the other cornstalks that have been soaked up in the soil.”
“And how do they have so many tears if there’s no water?” The boy tried to understand.
“Because they are so sad,” the father said, through mud-caked tears, which he hid from the son. There was still a darkness cast over the two in spite of the sun, slowly rising like a great sphere of blood above the starving land.
The boy and his father sat in silence for several minutes, saturating themselves in the sadness of the cornstalks.
Before they could speak again, the cornstalks began to rustle, swaying gently at first and then beginning the violent dance of a tortured people.
“We had better go,” the father quickly said, his words barely reaching the boy before dissipating into the earth like tiny barren seeds.
“Oh,” the boy said, fully understanding the haste of the father.
The pair rose from their crouched position and began the march into the thickets of stalks, brushing against each of them in a desperate attempt for comfort. The boy’s limp left leg dragged behind him in the dry dirt, leaving a trail that both hoped the corn would wash away with its tears. The boy could feel the hardness of the soil, the dryness of the land, and this dryness penetrated his entire body, making him aware of the undying thirst that was slowly killing him. He wished he could just lie down beneath the heartiest cornstalk and drink and bathe and wade in the refreshing ocean of its tears, but he knew the impossibility of such a wish. The oceans, if they really existed, were buried deep beneath the surface at a depth he could not labor to reach without the refreshment of water, and, as always, time did not allow for any such leisure. The darkness would soon dissipate completely, sucked away by the sun’s menacing glow. He knew they couldn’t survive long even in the dim light the long-ago burnt-out sun provided.
The paralysis of the boy’s leg did not slow down the pair. They rushed through the cornstalks, and although these cornstalks continued their violent dance, the pair was wholly ignored by the weeping plants. They had their own mission, grown together in the soil, trying to shake themselves from their roots in a massive rain dance that never came to fruition. The rains never fell, possibly could not fall, and the fog slowly evaporated as the stalks hungrily drank whatever they could, even if the moisture had been the byproduct of their own tears.
“Do you think we’ll ever get to eat the corn?” the boy begged the father, who dragged him along.
“There is no corn,” the father answered. “The stalks are empty.”
“But they look so plump.”
“They are swelling with sadness.”
The boy fought hard to hold back the tears that swelled in his eyes. For a moment, he thought about shedding them to feed his undying thirst, but he knew that it was better to hold onto them, just as it was better to not have a bowel movement. Losing even the minutest fraction of his body’s much depleted store would result in imminent death. He wished he could trade his soul for a canteen of water and an ear of corn, but deep down he knew that just as the cornstalks were without corn, his body was without a soul. If there had ever been a soul, it had vanished long ago in a desperate attempt to flee this awful place. At least he no longer had to carry around the weight.
“How much do we have to walk today?” the boy asked with an air of indifference. Walking was just as painful as not walking. Walking at least could help to keep the mind off everything else.
“We’ll walk until the corn ends,” the father responded in a whisper that the breeze carried away before the son could hear. The son knew what the father had said anyway. The son almost always knew the answers without hearing them. Still he asked, hoping the answers would change, clinging to the little human contact that he was allowed.
“How far does the corn go?” the boy wondered aloud.
“It’s impossible to say. But on the other side, there may be something better.”
The boy waited for his father to hypothesize what that something better might be, but the father trudged on in silence.
“Father,” the boy said then.
“Yes, son?” the father asked uncomfortably. His head bobbed briefly from side to side, glimpsing the still dancing cornstalks.
The boy said nothing in response. Nothing further needed to be said. Nothing further could be said. Their words were like the water; they knew that once used, they would never have them back even if water could be recycled by the atmosphere. Eventually there would simply be nothing left to say, and once there was nothing to say, there was nothing the father and son could do to pass the time. Life, what little was left, would simply be over.
Although the time stayed still for the father and son, it did not for the forces beyond the cornfield. The father knew that he couldn’t hold time forever, and looking at his son, he knew that there was only one thing that he could do. The pair couldn’t run forever. And so the father offered his son a simple nod and a ruffle of the head. Then he noisily slipped away back into the field from which they had come, rustling the dying stalks as much as his weak body could, beckoning to the other side to do what they could.
After a time, when the son was sure that the father was indeed not returning, he tore open a cornstalk that had tempted him with the seductive dance of stillness. Emotionless, he watched the stale air release and decay as it fell into the soil. The tears his father had spoke of that made the cornstalks swell must have evaporated the moment they were exposed. The boy remembered something about returning to dust, something his father had read to him from a thick black book many years ago. For a moment, he wondered where that book was now, but then he realized it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered now was making sure that he survived so that his father’s sacrifice wouldn’t be in vain. He wanted to crawl deep into the soil and cover himself with cornhusks, but he knew he could only keep moving. With no food or water, it was hard, but the boy bravely rose and slipped away into the nothingness held in the horizon. The only thing that fueled the sandy-haired boy now was fear.