It’s been 20 years since they started heavily fracking the Fayetteville Shale, and 10 years since the New Madrid fault line buckled the earth and a huge swath of middle America was evacuated – now secured by a security fenced topped with razor wire and motion sensors. No one is allowed in, except the prisoners who are tasked with reconstruction. The kids in the border town watch them get off the trains and load up on the bus to enter the uninhabitable zone – The Fields. Alice has heard the rumors of the people who stayed, their proximity to Nuclear One, and their cancerous lumps. Her friend Carmen is driven to see the fracking pad where his father was killed – and Michael, unfortunately, is the only one that can get them there.
It’s been 20 years since they started heavily fracking the Fayetteville Shale, and 10 years since the New Madrid fault line buckled the earth and a huge swath of middle America was evacuated – now secured by a security fenced topped with razor wire and motion sensors. No one is allowed in, except the prisoners who are tasked with reconstruction. The kids in the border town watch them get off the trains and load up on the bus to enter the uninhabitable zone – The Fields. Alice has heard the rumors of the people who stayed, their proximity to Nuclear One, and their cancerous lumps. Her friend Carmen is driven to see the fracking pad where his father was killed – and Michael, unfortunately, is the only one that can get them there.
Steven William Simon