Universal Harvester

by John Darnielle

Walk twenty paces from its door and you’re waist-high in corn or knee-high in bean fields, already forgetting the feel of being behind a door, safely shielded from the sky.

There are other times when people go into the fields and yell different things: “Help!” for example, often repeatedly with increasing volume, or “Where are you taking me?” But nobody usually hears them. A few rows of corn will muffle the human voice so effectively that, even a few insignificant rows away, all is silence, what to speak of out at the highway’s shoulder: all the way back there, already fading into memory now.

possibly our daughter will grow up to be president, possibly swords will be beaten into plowshares, possibly we will all climb into spaceships and go live on the moon.

parents get so old when you leave them to themselves for a few semesters.