This is the first thing I remember when the weeds grew over our heads, mother and father, sat my brother and

I down on the kitchen table, locked us each in the eye and said,

You can't go into the fields.

Why? I asked. I had been asking why to almost everything my parents would say.

You have to brush your teeth. Why? You have to wash your hands. Why?

You can't push your brother.

Why?

So, when they said we weren't allowed outside,

my response was almost automatic. Why?

I looked over at my older brother, the one who made me laugh all day, the one who was always

being silly, not listening to mother getting into trouble anytime he could, always happy, always smiling.

He wasn't smiling now.

He was wide-eyed and unmoving, hand-stuck, trembling on the table, frozen, staring out the window

behind me, locked in to the nightmare.

My father put his hand on my shoulder, gently, but with enough pressure to stamp my

hours back to his.

He breathed the words out, distantly, deadpan, serious.

The Gary Lowe will see you. The Gari Lo will take you. Then the Gari Lo will eat you. Year one.

When the wheat grew over our heads, my brother and I shut the curtains in all the rooms.

If I could see the fields to the window, I wouldn't be able to stop looking.

My mother found me one day, standing and swaying, dancing with a wind-blown wheat.

She tried to get my attention, clapping in my face, screaming my name.

...