The Flat Plane

A field where nothing is closer than anything else. The fencepost and the sky share the same distance. The wind and the ditch share the same weight. A woman walks across the field and she is no closer than the fencepost. She is no farther than the sky.

This is the dread: that nothing is more important than anything else. That the child's footprint and the dog's footprint are the same depth in the salt. That the crust does not remember her son differently from the fox. That the crust is the medium and the medium does not care.

No. She walks across the field and she is the field. Both are true. Both are on the same plane. But last winter the field froze and the frost cracked the salt deeper than any footprint and the crack is still there. The crack was there before she arrived. The crack will be there after she leaves. The past is in the crack. The crack does not heal.

Here is a stone placed on the ground. Here is a stone placed next to it. The second stone is not a correction of the first. The second stone is a second placement. The field holds both. The field does not choose. But the first stone was placed by her father and the second stone was placed by her and her father is dead and the stones are on the same plane and the plane does not rank the living above the dead.

This is the dread. This is the material: the salt that cuts their feet, the water they carry, the crust that holds the weight of everyone who has walked here at the same depth. The water is low. The salt is in the wounds. The plane does not adjudicate.

Three of them walked onto the flat at dawn. Marta and Henrik and Ruth. Ruth carried the water. Henrik carried the map. Marta carried nothing. The plane does not rank the carrier. The water is the material and the water is almost gone and the plane does not care.

Someone said the field was empty. Someone said the field was full. Both statements are on the same plane. But Ruth said it first, three years ago, and Marta is saying it now and the three years between them are on the same plane as the salt and the salt does not forget and the salt does not remember and the not-remembering is the dread.

The medium is the meaning. The salt is the statement. The plane is the place. The last placement is at the same level as the first.