Plastic Field

Nights have been hard for me as of late. As my eyes closed, a few moments later it’ll buckle right on up, wide awake, such is a curse of growing older. I have been living in this town ever since I can remember, too long some might say. The longer you stay in a place, they said, the more you’ll get used to it, understand it. But I reckon, stay too long and the less and less you understand.

I remember the summer of ‘45, back when the town was less crowded, back when I could make sense of everything and all. Used to love running around by the cornfield back when it was still there, now it had become a factory, making those plastic toys. Anyways, me and my friends would fight with sticks we found by the grounds. My old buddy, Langton would always win, he sure was a big fellow Langton was, fast and strong, but kind. Langton was the athletic type, loved baseball, said he’ll be the best batter in the world one day. Sadly, he never got there, stuck in this here town, lugging timbers back and forth all day long. Passed away years back now, the disease got to him. He was the first to go. We never would have thought it to be him, but fate can be funny sometimes, a thing I learned surviving out here for this long. How I missed them, all of them. I wonder if fate had simply forgotten about me, left me here way past my expiration date, for I don’t feel that I belong here anymore.

My sleep has been getting worse every year. I used to get three hours of sleep last year, but now I can barely get a rest at all. I haven’t left my house very much, only to get groceries and essential items. Even then I was still not at peace. Every time I look outside my window, that factory, it plagues me, fills me with yearning for nostalgia that I knew was gone forever. People no longer speak with respect to elders, or even speak properly anymore. Speeches filled with some words and phrases that I couldn’t fathom the meaning of. The kids don’t come out to play because there is no place to play in, the field’s gone, replaced. I’ve grown to hate the town I loved. It has changed and I have failed to follow. 

I spend most of my time in my bedroom, reading, thinking, and not much else. I have done my fair share of adventure and I don’t hunger for it anymore. In truth, my body needed the rest, it can’t go on any longer, not that I wanted to. Though I enjoy reading, I find myself stuck inside my own thoughts most of the time, especially over the last few years. Thinking about the past, the days where I was not alone, where we’d laid by the campfire, telling stories until it’s dark. When we rode on the horses at George Kazan’s ranch. The brown appaloosa, Daisy, and I had a real connection, a traveler soul, just like me. She won me many packs of cigarettes in my days, racing along the dirt trail nearby, never slowing down once. ‘The Grey Bullet’, we called her. She was put down after falling into a ravine, her legs all broken, mangled. When I was told the news, I sure was heartbroken, but not surprised in the slightest. Didn’t stop us from going to the ranch, though I never did find another mare as mean as Daisy.

The younger Kazan, Jimmy, went on to study in the city, a big ol’ college man. Went on to work in real estate, he really did hit it off. Few years later the older Kazan would sell the ranch, moved to the big city, living with the high-class folks. We didn’t hear much from them afterwards. Last I heard Old Georgie passed away from a liver disease, there was a whole fancy ceremony. As for Jimmy, he got himself a beautiful wife, had a few kids or two, owned his own business now. Sometimes I think to myself that I had just wasted away my youth, hearing about Jimmy Kazan.

The land that once was the Kazan’s Ranch had become the parking lot for the new shopping mall they built. The whole place is changing. It had changed, not just in its physicality but also it’s spirit as well. It seems I’m the last remaining remnant of the days passed. I wish I'm not.

They said the longer you stay in a place, the more you’ll get used to it, and that you will understand it. I don’t know who they are or were, and I’ll never know, not that it mattered. My time had passed. I had come to accept that, even though it pains me. The modern world has eluded me, as it will for you in the years to come. It's a youngman's world, there's no use for oldmen, they had their time. I might sound bitter, but I am not, not anymore. I was bitter, felt left behind, felt that it was unfair, but now I understand.

Back when I was a young man, when it was still my world, I vividly remembered an old man, living in the house on the edge of town. We never liked him much, ever since we were kids. He would never allow us to get near his house, play with his dog. Not once have I seen a smile on his wrinkled, miserable face. He was known by everyone, that jaded old man who never stepped a foot outside his own backyard. No one knows what his deal was even after he passed, we all just forgot about him. We didn’t understand him. Now I do. I have no idea if he ever made peace with himself before he went, or if he took that bitterness with him to the grave. We share the same fate as one another, having to live longer than we should, seeing loved ones passed, and our own way of life shifted for a new one. It only took me years of sleepless nights to fully come to terms with it. It was not the world that was lost. It was me, and that’s fine.