Granny Del's Farm

There was a war on Mott Street. It was hard to see, but hatred ran from house to house, a thing most real, played out in the weapons of misinformation and ideology.

Granny Del had a farm. It was in her front yard and side yard and backyard. She grew corn and okra and tomatoes and cabbages big as Jax head that sometimes hid black widows in the deep leaves, so you had to be careful. There were berries and herbs of all sorts. Granny Del was a great cook. In the wayback, she had a limonaia, and showed me how to make lemonade concentrate so Jax could sell some fizzy lemonade, and some not fizzy. It was fun until he got a ticket. No one knew this, but to operate a lemonade stand, you had to have a temporary license. Granny Del paid the ticket, had her day in court and set up the stand again.

A car drove by and threw a half finished slushy in her yard. She picked it up, eyed it to see if it might be recycled, then threw it in the trash.

“Why do people do that Granny Del? That’s a lot of mean for nothin’.”

“Nothing. A lot of mean for nothing.”

“Yes, ma’am. Nothing.”

“There’s a war on.”

“A war?”

“Between photons and Element Six.”

“I don’t see…”

“Neighbors don’t like my gardening. Shoulda put in a hog farm.”

“Why?”

“Huh? Because they are ugly and they stink for miles. A true weapon of war, Jackson. They hate my farm.”

What’s wrong with your farm? We get fried okra and Mexican street corn and slaw just by walking out the door. It’s great.”

“It is a war of form over function.”

“What does that mean? I thought it was photons and Element…”

“Element Six. Carbon. It is, kiddo. It’s the difference between a thing’s appearance and what it does. How much money it makes in the moment. Want versus Need. Desire versus Necessity. Some things are very pretty, but don’t do a thing. They can even hurt.

“Oh, you mean like Cordelia at school. She’s so pretty, but she’s always twirling her hair, and don’t do much else as I can tell.”

“Doesn’t do much else.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“She's pretty, huh?” She smiled at him. He got all red ‘round the gills and ears and changed the subject.

“I guess. Why does Stella up the street make war on you? Trash your yard.

“Because, in her mind, every yard needs to look like a putting green.”

“Ever trash her yard?”

“I’ve given much thought to the notion, Jax.”

Jackson laughed. “Well, a putting green is pretty and serves a purpose, right?”

"So it is. It does. But at what cost? People overuse fertilizer. Nitrogen run-off. Phosphate run-off from lawns and golf courses. Do you ever see them putt in their own front yards?

“No ma’am. I don’t think they have cups in the ground.”

“Precisely. Useless. Destructive. Pointless but for the pretty.”

But, pretty… has purpose.”

“Ah, Jax, a philosopher and romantic already. When does pretty cost too much?”

“I don’t know. When it kills, I guess.”

“Oh, very good,” said Granny Del. “Boy, sometimes you amaze me.” She clasped both sides of his head in her hands and gave him a hard peck on the forehead.

“Look at this, Jackson. Rows and rows of corn, strategically placed like ‘The Old Soldiers of The Long War.’ Is it beautiful to you?”

“Beautiful enough. Tasty even more. Long War?”

“This nonsense has been going on since Day Double Zero. No one realizes, though it is obvious to those whose eyes are not scaled over with greed, that if you pull too hard on a spider’s thread, you will set things in motion you do not want, and can’t turn back."

“Not pretty?”

“The eye of the beholder, Jackson. What the spider sees, what the thread-puller sees, and what you see are three different views of beauty.”

“Ugh.”

He helped Del with collecting loose sheaves, then stopped and asked a question far off the previous topic, as is a child’s wont

“Grandma?”

“Yes?”

“Why can I move?”

“Why, Jax, whatever do you mean?”

“I mean, why can I move? I’m not like dead people. See? He did a little jig in the dirt. Dead people don’t move. Forever.”

“Oh. Food, dear. Energy is what moves us if we want.”

“If we gave Grandpa food, he’d come back then?”

“No, honey. I wish it were so, but no. Grandpa Herbie can’t use food anymore.” Her beloved Herbert of forty-eight years, eleven months and ten days died of melanoma three months ago.

“But food doesn’t move. Mostly. Except when it falls from a tree and boinks a guy on the head and makes him smarter. Why can I move?”

Del laughed. Oh, she loved this boy. “Umm, let’s see. Food has energy, it moves, very fast sometimes, but all the moving is very small, and on the inside.”

What does that mean? Why can’t we give Grandpa energy?

Del had a morbid vision of her late husband connected to electrodes, strapped to a lab table on a lightning-split night.

She sat down, and Jackson sat cross-legged in front of her.

“So. Food is made of molecules. The molecules are held together by energy. Like a rubber band. Your body knows how to split the molecules. “Pop,” it goes, like the tiniest firecracker you can imagine. They give you the power to do a fine jig in my little farm when the energy is released. But it’s millions of firecrackers. Millions and millions to get you going.”

“Like popcorn.”

“Sort of. More like gasoline.”

“So. It’s like he’s out of gas.”

“No. He’s broken. Like a broken engine, Peanut, and no one can fix him.”

“We can get him another part…”

“That happens sometimes, but often someone else would be missing a part. Then they would die.


“Will the Earth die?”

“My, you are morbid today. Yes. A natural death in about a billion years. The sun will run out of hydrogen, balloon out and consume Earth in about four or five billion years. You needn’t worry about that. An unnatural death may come for earth much sooner.”

“How soon?”

“Depends on Stella down the street. I’m sorry. That was snarky.”

“It’s ok. Does the Earth have a brain?”

“Goodness, you are the Chief Inquisitor of Mott Street today, aren’t you?”

“The Sun killed Grandpa. It will kill the Earth.”

“Oh, my, no.”

“You said the sun is nothing but a big nuclear reactor spewing radiation into space.”

“I did.” Del choked up. “He got too much.”

“I’m sorry, G-ma. I didn’t mean to hurt you." He threw his arms around her neck. He is getting so big, she thought.

“He just got too much, and it hurt him. Like my magnifying glass. Focus it, it will start a fire. All energy can hurt. A falling apple. A lit match.”

Jackson wiped his eyes. “I’m sorry, Granny Del.”

I patted him, brushed the dirt off, and he helped me from the ground.

“What G-ma?”

“No. The Sun is good. It gives us our farm. But one must be careful. Like all good things, you can overdo it. Like Cordelia.” She soft punched Jax in the shoulder, and he blushed and laughed.

“It’s hot,” said Del. “You wanna make your old granny a fizzy lemonade?”

“Sure. At the stand?” The imp in the boy was about to escape.

“Perhaps later, but not the stand today. I do not think I am up for waging a neighborly battle.”

“Ok. Back in a minute.” He stopped and turned. “What about lemon sherbet for dessert?”

‘We’ll see.” A bounty.

Del cupped her chin in her hands and had a hard cry. She was done when Jax got back.

“Fizzy, like you like it.”

“Well done, young man.” He smiled and leaned up against his grandmother.

We sipped in silence for a bit, but the poor child’s mind was aflame with the End of the World and with Death, and energy, order and decay.

“G-ma?”

“Yes, brat?”

“Stop it. You said the world might die an unnatural death. What did that mean?”

“It means we kill it.”

“Why would we do that?”

“Tugging the thread too hard for the spider’s treasure.”

“The world is very big, though. We’re tiny. Tinier than ants.”

“Ants can kill an elephant if there are enough of them

“Yes. I can see that.” He took a swig of his lemonade. “Mmm, this is a good batch.”

“I concur, sir.” He smiled.

“Tell me more about this war.”

“You tell me more about Cordelia.”

“Never mind.”

“Just teasing, kiddo. What would you like to know?”

“What are photons?”

“Oh, photons are the tiniest chunks of light. They are energy. They are free.”

“Free energy. Really? Light? Like from the Sun?”

“Exactly like that.”

“I know what carbon is. You have to pay for it.”

“You do.”

“So, why would someone want to pay for energy when they can get free energy?”

“You tell me.”

“Well… Oh! Never mind.”

“He sat still for several minutes, sipping his lemonade. “How does it work, G-ma? The light. The photons. How do they make things grow? Do they turn windmills? Make rain fall?"

“So many questions, all with different answers. Krebs’ cycle, convection, conduction, the Coreolis force, the photo-electric effect, laser light, parabolic mirrors, Stirling engines… Sheesh, boy, I need to buy you some college textbooks.”

He frowned. “Besides being free, why not carbon?”

“Well, you must tear up the Earth to get to it. Whole mountains leveled. The runoff is toxic. Men must go underground to harvest it. Many die, trapped in the dirt. You must move it over water supplies by ship, truck, train and pipe, so if there is a leak, the land and water are poisoned. When you burn it, to put it simply, the air thickens, and heat is trapped. Think of the limonaia. It traps the hot air. The house warms. The world warms. Ice sheets melt. These are the drivers for the currents that keep life in the oceans stirred up. The difference in temperature is one of the engines of life on Earth. Not to sound hokey, but it’s all tied together. The spider thread.

“Why are we losing the war?”

“We’re not. Change is happening. They are milking it for all its worth, though, before the wells run dry. Our infrastructure, the way we transport solar power, is far from ready. I wish I could show you all the things. They are amazing. Parabolic mirrors focused on a single target in Andalusia, its daytime heat of thousands upon thousands of degrees stored in salt that gets so hot it melts. Imagine. Molton salt to power houses at night! My worry is that it is happening too late.”

“Stella. Why does she not see? It harms her. I can see it and I am just a little kid.”

“Luddities,” said Grandma.

“What’s a Luddite,” asked Jax?

“What does it sound like?”

“Like a thud. Like stupid.”

“Sometimes a thing looks and sounds exactly as it is.”

He nodded his head. “I’m a Luddite sometimes.”

“Me too, kiddo.”

"Jackson, sometimes the truth is right there for you to see, but Belief trumps Reality."

“Can I have a mint?”

"Sure. My purse, on the bar."

Free range once a week. Sustainable fisheries. Artificial coral, Stirling engines. Thermochromic paint, micro-farming, noon farming, oligarchs. Energy everywhere, just needs to be lassoed. Cisterns. Strontium-90 in baby teeth.

Del dozed.

We are stewards of this Earth. The Earth is a spaceship.

There is energy in everything.

She picks up a small rock.

Feel that warmth? That is energy moving from the warm rock into your cooler hand.

Stella once shoved her way onto the property. She demanded to know what Del was doing to save the planet, earth, sky, oceans. What difference did this stalk of corn make to anything? It was a tough question. Jax came back outside, reeking of peppermint, and of a sudden, Del had the answer.

“You tired, Grandma?”

“Yes, little man, how did you know?”

He laughed. “You were snoring.”

“Ah. The giveaway. Bedtime?"

“I guess. What time is mom getting me?”

“Before noon.”

He yawned, gave me a smile and I knew it would all be all right. We weren’t too late.