By Joshua Ryan
Spring went on. Out in the fields, it was beans, then onions, then back to beans, then three weeks digging a ditch to drain water off the level, featureless land. If you looked around, you’d believe the earth was flat after all. When I woke up in the night, I saw the long barred window at the top of the barn, and the cold stars shining behind it. Ace and Mack were rutting in the bunk ten feet away from me, but I didn’t notice it anymore. I didn’t even hear it.
Things did happen from time to time. Dax broke his arm on some machine in the canning factory and had to be taken to the vet. Who put him back in the coffle where he could keep whacking weeds, only with his other arm. One time it rained for six days and we couldn’t work, so there were a lotta fights. Even Ace got in a fight with a workie that made a joke about him. I can’t remember the joke, but I know the guy will never want to fight him again.
