Chapter 3: Kindertotenlieder (Discontinue)

The summer heat wave was so scorching. Here, the 2006 heat wave was like a miniature version of the Kansas dust bowl.

We stood out under the blazing sunlight of California summer. I could feel it from time to time. The past stood its roots. The palm trees stood hither and thither, not as much as the first time I moved into this town.

I explored the same neighborhood with Hannah, the same for her but not for me. It had changed. Buildings and suburban houses were larger in number than I could remember and the orange groves plummeted, the place where I used to hang out with my dearest Diane.

I ambled finally to the intersection and there it is! Jones’s Diner! It’d been there since I moved here, late 1935 after the Black Sunday event.

***

I moved away from Kansas. I don’t have a dad; I don’t even know his name. Kansas in the 1930s , as you can imagine, was a replica of a desert, which was caused by humans' eagerness in plowing the prairies into the barren desert of hopeless farmers.

My childhood was around the sand, not the good old prairies. I lived near Dodge city with my loving mother, Theresa. She was gorgeous and unlike her peers, she was a tough farmer. She moved from Italy to the USA in 1911.

My farmhouse was normal-size in that era. Mom used to work on the field with her workers and it just kept getting worse as the practical human practice of a fool. The desert was becoming a desert every day by day and the food was scarce. We couldn’t afford groceries in Dodge City grocery stores. It was so, I might say, exorbitant. We cooked from our farm, which, like most of the towns nearby, was so few and of such a low quality.

I didn’t eat much; we didn’t; mom and I had to survive this barren dimension.

April 14, 1935, that day I was sick. I had a cold and I lay on my bed. Then, mom shouted for me to look outside. There. There was a massive black wall moving towards us. We didn’t have much time to cover our house. The dust struck at full force and it was petrifying. The sky became the night that the moon didn’t even exist. The sound was deafening like a freight train running over us. There also was a thunder sound in the storm. It was frightening. I cuddled in my bed as my mother still covered the house from the invading dust. I was so scared. It didn't happen like this before in my life. I cried quietly among the sound of the shattering world of sheer humans’ stupidity.

Bruder Jakob…Bruder Jakob…schläfst du noch...schläfst du noch?

The sound of the freight train suddenly changed an eerie low bass and string sound with the off key playing. Was that…my dad singing?

Hörst du nicht die Glocken? …Hörst du nicht die Glocken? Tod dringt durch; du fliehst nie.

Bruder Jakob…Mario?

Mario

…Death cometh; thou fleest not…

It kept repeating that I blacked out.

***

We got into the booth in Jones’s diner.

“Isn’t this nice? I haven’t eaten burgers and shakes for ages!”, exaggerated Hannah.

“Yeah, one sloppy shake please!”, I hollered at the owner, now it’s the grandson of Mr. Jones.

He chuckled, “One sloppy shake on the house!”. The sloppy shake here means Jones’s super chocolate milkshake.

“Oh you know the sloppy shake?!”, cackles Hannah, “One for me too!”

“Then two sloppy shakes on the house!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dedicated to Gustav Mahler and everyone who insipire my inspiration.

And thank you for the comments!

Eve
14/10/26