The Rest is Silence Read Online Free

mouth.
    â€œIt’s tough land to grow on.”
    â€œDad and I planted last weekend. Seeded our beans, carrots, onions, potatoes, turnips, and beets.”
    His farm was like many of the older farms nearby. Their hundred-plus acres ran in a narrow band from the river, through the valley, and up the side of the mountain. They had lumber and firewood standing at their backs while they plowed. The soil was sandy and fertile, and if there was enough rain, it was so hot down there that the crops grew while you watched.
    â€œYou’re lucky to have the river so close for the cattle,” I said.
    He shook his head. “You kidding? I wouldn’t let them drink that. There’s all that runoff from the farms upstream. Last time we let them drink from it our vet bills went way up. Antibiotics and such. No, I’d trade some of our land for the good water you’ve got up on the mountain.”
    â€œI keep hearing about that water.” I smiled. “Wish some of it was flowing on my land.”
    I asked for five more butter tarts to take with me.
    â€œI hope a paper bag’s all right by you.”
    â€œI don’t have much choice, do I?”
    I walked my bike through town. It looked like it hadn’t changed much since Dad and I were there seventeen years before. There was a new Baptist church on Commercial Street, and the train tracks had been torn up. Other than that it struck me as sleepy and quaint, as if it belonged to another era. I went to the SaveEasy, hoping for something fresh from the produce section. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. A few dried-up bunches of spinach from Quebec, some local carrots and lettuce. There were, amazingly, a few avocados. I bought them all, as well as a bunch of kale and some snow peas from a farm in Paradise, downstream from Middleton. I went down every aisle. An old man, a farmer whose family had probably lived here since 1800, pushed his cart through the near-empty store. He was skinny, with concave cheeks and bony hands. He wore a ratty ski hat despite the warmth. He stopped in front of a shelf of soup, pulled a single can, and put it in his cart. He reached for a second and held it, as if weighing the can. He was looking at the price. He put it back on the shelf. We are too far off the beaten track to get much of the new plastic packaging, and from what I hear on late-night radio coming out of Boston and Portland, there are shortages even in the major cities. The store did its best to hide the gaps on the shelves by spreading out what boxes, jars, and cans they had.
    But then, at the front of the store by the checkout, there was a display of plastic bottles of soda and water. Behind them, a large, youthful face on a piece of cardboard beamed at us. In large red letters she said, “They’re here! In non-biodegradable bottles!” I pulled a bottle of water from the display and squeezed it. It was flexible, like the plastic it had replaced. The label read:
    NuForm Plastix® bottles are made exclusively with PolyOx® technology. They are guaranteed never to biodegrade. All NuForm products pass stringent FDA regulations and are safe to drink from, and safe to re-use, over and over. For optimal use please keep your NuForm Plastix® product out of direct sunlight.
    I had heard about these. They were made by EcoPlast, a chemical company that had made its name manufacturing environmentally friendly plastics. When plastics became susceptible to bacterial digestion, EcoPlast was one of the manufacturers that scrambled to solve the problem. They found a temporary solution by joining the hydrocarbon chains in their plastics with heavy metals. When these new plastics were eaten by the genetically engineered bacteria, they released mercury, arsenic, and lead, killing the microbes immediately. EcoPlast had received special dispensation from the FDA, through emergency legislation rushed through Congress to bypass the normal safety testing,