Paper thin

Even though it’s early morning the temperature has risen, the mulchy mud has turned to a soft powder that billows with each step. Each step, a fluffy puff of brown, making my feet blend into the ground, the dust erasing their nature as trainers. My nostrils seem to recede, attacked by the dust, pollen and the initial underlying odour from the pig barns.

There is noone around, but the presence of humankind is evident in the uniform wheat stalks, and the imprint of herbicide leaving its toxic trail, dividing path from life, leaving an unnaturally sharp crop line.

There is a feathery quality to the plants that line the path. The bright sunshine and the blue sky seem to have sucked the lifeblood from them, so that only papery shadows remain. They glisten, translucent, whispering of past times and there is a gentleness in the way the wind rustles through the papery stalks. Their heads drop, as if shy of the beauty of their delicate feathered tentacles. Their whispers are only interrupted by the more blustery rustle of the heads of wheat that bounce together. Those heads will soon be gone under the thrashing knives of the harvester, but now they jostle happily together.

It is too early for the butterflies and who knows where the snails go when the land dries up, so it’s only the birds who accompany me. Two interruptions, the blood curling screams of trapped animals as I pass by the pig barn and a motorway of ants as I return. Does their business point to the possible threat of a storm?

Tarmac, also suffering under the sun, cracks allowing dandelions to perk their way through until I reach the poured concrete of the village.