A good way to keep busy during this difficult time is to give yourself something to do. If you are sick of video games, have read all the books, and watched everything on Netflix, then writing something can be a good outlet. Just Write is my challenge to OC Nation. Sit down for five minutes or so and do nothing but write. Don't proofread or edit as you go. Just write. It can be straightforward or cryptic, fiction or non-fiction, funny or serious. Post it to the WOCR website (if it is appropriate of course) with the title "Just Write: [Your Title]". Here is my submission. Feel free to write something of your own or just enjoy the works of others. Happy writing!
Nothing grows in the tilled land.
Rows and rows of grooves gouged into the earth remain empty. Seeds scattered with hope of good harvest sink into the dry dirt and stay there; Lilliputian coffins of the potential crop.
The sun shines, warming the soil and invigorating the worms.
The rain falls, drumming the land like impatient fingers and turning the dry dirt to thick mud.
The farmer and his family scatter fertilizer, rich in nutrients and bountiful in quantity.
And still, nothing grows in the tilled land.
No stalks break through the top soil. The seeds are good, the earth is rich, the air is warm. The nonsensical phenomenon continues for weeks and months. The farmer grows weary and nervous. He asks around. In other farms, the same. On the same days that last year saw fresh ears of corn and budding soy beans, the dirt remains undisturbed, an endless sea of brown.
No crops. No food. No money.
The farmer digs up the seeds he planted. They remain sealed and unchanged. His neighbors ask why. His children ask why. He asks why. The starving country and world ask why the farms can no longer feed them.
But why is an irrelevant question. Why does not matter. Why is a gust of wind through an empty window into a deserted living room. Why is a full moon on a cloudy night, present but irrelevant. Why does not matter.
Perhaps the seeds are all defective. Perhaps the land has turned on humanity, tired of the abuses. Perhaps the famine is a plague wrought upon mankind by some divine.
Or perhaps there is no reason. Perhaps the food does not come because sometimes things happen and sometimes nothing happens.
Perhaps that is why.
But why is irrelevant.
What is relevant is that
Nothing grows in the tilled land.