Tobacco Road

It was known as the Tobacco Road – the country’s largest tobacco trading company and the fields it owned with the road between the two. Thousands of people were employed by the company – adults, children, elderly – there was enough work for every one.
Dave had been out on the fields picking up the tobacco for almost as long as he could remember. His family was one of the few families that were loyal to the company and never fled it in hard times. The boy used to listen to stories about how his great grandfather first decided to work with the back-then small company. His son, Dave’s grandfather, started working with him at the age of 8 and so it became a tradition.
Secretly, Dave hated the place. He dreamed of what was beyond the wall separating the Road from the world. He was told, or to be exact overheard, rumours that it was all full of colors beyond anyone’s imagination – the sun was yellow, the sky was blue, the grass was green. Dave hated the black and white world he lived in. He dreamt that one day he could wake up before the break of dawn, go outside, lean against the wall and watch the sun rise. See all the color and beauty it held. Admire it. Instead, he would hear the factory roaring, announcing the new day.

Today he was called in the factory. One of the people who was responsible for packaging the cigarettes called sick so someone had to take his place. Dave gladly agreed to, just to see what it’s like to work in a factory.
Very few people could enter it and even fewer could afford to buy cigarettes. Sometimes, if you were very good at your job, you would get a cigarette in the break. But just sometimes.
Dave wanted to try one, inhale that pure poison, taste it, cough. He secretly took on of the cigarettes in the box before him and walked out for his lunch break. It was cold outside, mostly white today, since frost had fallen today morning. He took out a match from his pocket and lit it to the hard wall surrounding the Tobacco Road. He leaned on the wall and looked up to the greyish sky – no clouds today, no sun.
He could hear the boys on the other side of the Road singing happy songs. He called them the lucky boys. They were born in a world of color, a world that seemed so far away from Dave’s. He wanted to leave something behind, something that would be remembered. Something to put all his soul in, but he didn’t know what. Many times he thought of scratching a message on the wall, but he didn’t know what to write.

He looked up in the sky again, smoking the cigarette. Closed his eyes, listening to the song from the lucky boys. Opened them when the song finished and saw something red-greenish in the sky. Could be in this world of black and white a butterfly had come?
The kite was sawing the skies, followed by the shouts from the lucky boys.
Dave went home that day and asked his father.
- I saw this kite today. It was colourful. Can you catch it for me, father?
He didn’t answer. Dave looked in his eyes.
- It is but a world away, my son. We can not have color here. And we have just the smell of tobacco. Do you know what is said beyond the wall? ‘People on Tobacco Road can look, but they can’t play.’ You will never be on the other side of the wall, my son.

That day Dave decided what he would scratch on the wall, what he will leave behind.
He woke up the next morning, went to the factory, took another cigarette and went to smoke it by the wall. He took out his knife and scratched in the wood.

* * *

The factory was long but closed. Some man from beyond the sea bought the Tobacco Road and shut it down soon after, leaving so many people with no work. Dave watched from a hill nearby how machines came in and tore the factory down. The smell of tobacco was so strong now. He was surrounded by boys, telling him to fly the kite this was and that way.
Memories flooded his mind. He remembered his childhood, the black and white childhood he had. He remembered that first time he was called in the factory to work, the first cigarette, the lucky boys singing from the other side of the wall and the kite in the sky. He remembered what he wrote the next day on the wall and smiled.

* * *

Down the hill, the people were tearing down the wall. Many of the planks were scratched with meaningless or misspelled words, signs or names. But there was one that had just one sentence on it. The guy read. He looked up to the sky and saw a kite. Smiled
“If it takes me forever, one day I will have that kite.”

16.10.2008
Replica