Maddy’s Journal 9 (fan fiction Farming Simulator 22)

What do I actually remember about that day is a question I’ve asked myself for many years. Like so many memories, some of the ones that soldered into the wiring of my brain have simply failed to secure the connection. Or short circuited and I’m not certain if they’re memories of true events or more like false memories. The false ones created by combining what we actually do recall and what others have told us or muddied up for us. Like when people say the remember their first step. It’s only a memory because so many people have told you about it. Think about it, no one remembers their first time using an actual toilet. Your first step is always more joyous than the first time you went to the bathroom anywhere other than in the clothes you’re wearing. I’ve heard it said the potty training is often the most traumatic event of our lives. So much so, our brain’s physically block the memories. We only understand where the appropriate places are to tinkle or pooh and not the training. 

Without question I remember the stomach churning smell of burning flesh and singed hair. In fact those aromas would become permanent enough for all of us that my parents sold the car to the scrap yard. Partly as a sort of soul cleanser and partly because the stench just wouldn’t dissipate enough for any of us to ride comfortably. At least that’s how it felt. 

I also believe my parents scrapped the car as a way to prevent future buyers from asking questions about the burned smell. And in a way, I think my dad needed the car to be crushed as therapy. Put all those horrifying moments in the compactor and destroy them. He needed relief from his nightmares. But he never did get rewarded. It’s a wonder my parents are still married given his terror-filled dreams. 

***

My brother and I used to play the typical travel games (license plate game, Slug Bug, even Trivial Pursuit) when he and I were in primary school during longer road trips. Longer road trips. Those words seem funny now that I’ve traveled into the Midwest and closer to the mountain states. The distances between towns and cities are certainly longer than those in the east. Even “rural” North Carolina is more tightly packed than the population centers in Ohio, Iowa, Indiana, and others. That’s saying nothing for the vast distances LW told me about in South Dakota, Nebraska, and Wyoming. He said it takes a full eight hours to span Wyoming from east to west and over six hours north to south. And he said you could travel for hours on some roads and not see another person. 

But the morning of the fog (on the way to Chattanooga) we didn’t play any games. We didn’t even talk. Both of us in our own teenager thoughts that little—if anything—had to do with each other. Or anyone. 

There are times when our minds play vicious little tricks on us, and it asks us questions we simply can’t answer (and maybe don’t want to answer). For me, two things stand out as the most common: what horrors lie in fog, and how would I have turned out if I hadn’t fallen asleep that day? 

One question I can never answer because…well, time travel is still in the testing phase. 

As for what horrors lie in the fog, I’m still searching for all the answers. But I do have a few answers. 

***

What I woke up to was screaming. In my grogginess, you know the type of discombobulated feeling of nodding off for a nap but not getting fully asleep before waking, or the zombie-like feeling after waking up from a NyQuil induced sleep, I thought it was Mom lashing at Dad for his driving. Again.

As it turned out, it wasn’t my mom screaming at my dad. But there was screaming. Metallic and human voices both. 

Maddy’s Journal 8 (Farming Simulator 22 fan fiction)

I got a little sidetracked in my last entry. Well, a lot sidetracked. But that’s the benefit of a journal and not a—gasp!—diary. When I journal I can take every rabbit trail I want and not feel like I broke some unwritten rules. I always found diaries as too specific and full of excessive introspection. Me, I just prefer to write whatever comes to mind. Sometimes those ramblings jar loose rusty memories, which is where this entry is going to take me. Back to December 11, 1990. The day I became terrified of fog. It was a Tuesday. 

The decision to begin Christmas break early my senior year was not my idea. I wanted extra days to spend with friends. And hit up your typical high school party. A little drinking, petting, strip poker. You know, standard young person exploration mixed with stupidity stuff. I’ll admit to being on the wild side. I was safe, or at least I believed I was safe at that age. Okay, okay. I had been on the pill for five years already, so I was a lot more careless than I should’ve been. At least looking through the twenty-twenty hindsight eyeglasses, I was safe. Before you all think I was the local bicycle, I had—yes had—as in not anymore, a physical condition that birth control managed. Of course, how would I know? Mom is the one who insisted I be on birth control. 

TMI, I know. But you’re the one reading this so don’t throw stones in my direction. 

My dad’s family all lived in Chattanooga. And I do mean all his family. They had migrated up and down the east coast from Florida to Maine and back south again. They were like migrating animals always chasing the rainy season for greener pastures. But when they arrived in Chattanooga, it was like they arrived at the Mara River, and not one of them was willing to take that first leap into the River of Death. 

And that’s where we were headed on that Tuesday morning. We had to leave early even though we had driven all the way to Asheville, North Carolina the day before. Still almost four hours to go. So, we were out the door by six that morning, and planned no stops until arriving at my uncle’s house. 

At Knoxville we took Interstate 75 south after leaving Interstate 40 from Asheville. I don’t recall what the traffic was like. Or the weather. Or anything, really. My mind concerned itself with other things far more important to an eighteen year old. Besides I wasn’t driving. And Knoxville wasn’t new. We had been there before. An hour later all hell had broken loose. And the images I saw that morning still haunt my sleep. 

If it wasn’t for my dad’s heroics, I’m not sure I would’ve ever come to grips (as flimsy as they still are) with the carnage. But what my dad did that day for so many people has always provided me with a lifeline. And the scars on his arms are a not-so-subtle daily reminder of the events that started with the fog. 

I’ll need a break for now. The memories are too overwhelming for me to focus on writing. And the tears in my eyes are making the screen blurry. 

Maddy’s Journal 7 (Farming Simulator 22 fan fiction)

 I was already fuming, positive I had smoke billowing out both ears like two chimneys when LW called. The fog had rolled in thick just west of Cleveland. It wasn’t enough I had been driving on the Ohio Turnpike, which cost me nearly twenty bucks, but now there was fog. I should have stayed home. 

But I couldn’t. What had gone on in North Carolina was the reason I hit the road three days early. 

I grew up in Swan Quarter, an unincorporated little village in east central North Carolina. Not that far from the eastern shore of the Atlantic. For generations my family ran a small farm with rich, black soil in the area we refer to as The Blacklands. Maybe you’ve heard of it? 

The Blacklands, which covered several counties near the Atlantic coast—eight or ten counties, I think—was originally a cypress swamp. But some engineering Dutch, German, and Midwesterners, descended into the swamp in the 60s. They drained the water and chopped down all the trees. They plowed up the land, and wouldn’t you know it, their crops grew bountifully and lush. 

Of course with the rate at which the Outer Banks are eroding (ten to fifteen feet a year), I suspect the rich, organic soil of The Blacklands will soon be washed away or sterilized by the encroaching ocean. At least that’s what my alarmist family members think. And in there lies the rub. I’m an optimist and they are pessimists. All doom and gloom. Sharks, hurricanes, aliens, nuclear apocalypse, global warming, the whole gamut of disasters from the Book of Revelations, and some that don’t. Especially the aliens, but I can’t get into that. I’d rather burn my ear with a curling iron. 

And then there’s the Mothman, an urban legend my uncle swears he saw in West Virginia. But, that’s a tale for another day. That’s worse than both ears burned. 

The real problem is my parents wanting to give up the farm. They’re looking to sell lock, stock, and barrel. Pack their bags and leave town. They’re moving, so they say, to Bloomfield, Canada. To hell with The Blacklands, and the country, and just everything. Onward to the frozen north. Free healthcare and long live the Queen. Canola oil and hockey year round. (My dad’s a huge hockey fan—rah, rah, ree, go Carolina Hurricanes.) 

Strange, most retirees move to Florida or Arizona. 

It was during dinner last night when my mom finally let the cat out of the bag. Unceremoniously, I might add. She just spouted, “We’re thinking hard about moving to Canada.”

“What!” I said. “You don’t know French.”

She must’ve expected my response, prepped for it. Her cheeks flushed, and her eyes flared. And although her bright red hair had faded over the last decade, it seemed to find its former glory when she snapped back. “Not everybody in Canada speaks French.”

I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t recall seeing my mom suddenly so passionate about…well, anything. So I poked the bear. “True, but how do you expect to learn a new language at your age? You barely even speak coherent English.” 

I felt bad the moment it popped out. Mom’s hearing had faded rapidly in recent years. She never did hear well, anyway. She had suffered nerve damage from a severe ear infection when she was four. Rural North Carolina didn’t have cutting edge medical facilities, she doesn’t in fact. And now here I was attacking her vulnerability. Mom is good humored, but I electrified a nerve. 

She burst from her chair. The bottle merlo tipped over and rolled off the table. It smacked our eight year old Border Collie on the rump. He’s going blind, but that didn’t keep him from snapping wildly, and caught Mom on the left ankle. She kicked out, and struck the leg of the table hard enough to rattle silverware.

I braced myself for what would come next, but the tirade didn’t come. Instead, Mom stomped out of the dining room to her sewing nook, and slammed the door behind her. 

Dad and I heard her sobs as I wiped up the spilled merlo. Neither of us gathering the to nerve to speak. It was two hours before my mom let me apologize. She no longer wanted to talk about moving that evening. 

Maddy’s Journal 6 (Farming Simulator 22 fan fiction rough draft)

 September 1

It’s early afternoon here in North Carolina. LW called here around 8, so 6 his time. He said some of the estate money had trickled in. He told me he wanted to make a land purchase and get contractors in to build a chicken coop, a couple pigsties, and a cow pasture. I told him to go ahead with the purchases, and I would see him in a week. 

He sounded shocked at that. When I asked him why, he said he didn’t expect me to return so soon. But the way he said it burned my ear a bit, and for a few moments I didn’t see him in my minds eye. I saw a greenish, drooling troll running across a bridge with an army bag stuffed with cash. And for the first time since I met LW, I wondered if he was on the level. Or was he taking me for a ride? 

Then he asked me if I would be willing to sell calves. The price wouldn’t be better than adults, but if we managed to get 40 top quality heifers, and if they bred well, we would end up with 40 great cows. Quality breeders were more valuable in the long run. Maybe 8-10 years. 

He warned me that the livestock would likely need to be fed by purchase. But next fall we would have grown all the crops needed to produce our own feed. 

And finally he put a bug in my ear about cotton. It wouldn’t be of any benefit to the animals, but the current market was good, and we could use it as a cash crop. Maybe even ship some off by train for a premium price. The initial investment would be high, but he thought it would be a boon in the long game. 

Then he signed off. He said a long day was just beginning. 

Just now heard from LW. He said a local farmer just sold off his entire spread. Something about a grisly divorce. He would be willing to sell all his slurry to us on the cheap. Since I wanted to go as organic as possible to told LW to get it all.