The road was deserted. A small herd of grimy cattle stood forlornly on a hill next to a rundown shack. A small speck emerged in the distance and, as it neared, it revealed itself to be a small cloud of dust. As it came closer yet, a shape became visible in front of the cloud of dust. A rusty car came rattling along the road in the direction of the hovel. It halted in front of the derelict little cottage.

A lined face emerged from the car, followed by its short, squat body. From the other side an oppositely long and spindly man unfolded himself from the passenger seat. “Hey Tom, don’t you think that this car’s too small? Don’t you think that we should get a bigger one?”

“Shoot Charlie, I told you this before. We can’t afford it.”

“But still, I think that we should plan on getting a bigger car sometime. My legs got so many cramps in them, I’d think they were meant to be bent, had I not just been looking at them.”

“C’mon, lets get inside; looks as if there’s a light dust storm heading our way.” Tom said, unsure as to whether there actually was or not. His excuse worked, though, and they set off for their home. “Darn dust storms; seems as if we get them twice a day now.” Tom muttered as they trudged their way into the dilapidated little house.

The interior of the house looked as though someone had spread a layer of sand over almost everything in the room. The only things that covered in dust were the table and the two men that had just walked into the room. The small window looked out upon a tall windmill. The windmill stood guard over the dust-blown cattle who stood huddled together in a group at its base.

“C’mon, Charlie, it’s time for us to get to bed – we got to get up early tomorrow to milk the cows and then leave.”

Charlie headed for the door. “Okay, Tom, just let me…”

What Charlie was about to do was drowned out by a sudden whooshing noise and the sound of tiny grains of dust blowing against the house. Tom grabbed Charlie by the back of his torn coat, and slammed the door. “Damned dust storms. Don’t go out there now, Charlie. You’ll get blown away and have grit forced up and into your mouth and nose!” Tom warned.

Charlie, still a bit shocked by the fact that he almost walked right into the dust storm, sat down. “Let’s go to bed now”, he suggested.

They lay down, and soon afterwards, fell asleep.

The next morning, the dust storm had blown through, and recovered everything in a layer of yellowish brown crystalline snow. Tom and Charlie went outside to check on the world. “The cows seemed to have survived, but we don’t know about our crops, Charlie. That storm last night was more intense than normal, but I bet you that our crops are fine. Come on – let’s hop in the car to go see.”

“Okay, but I don’t like sitting in that wretched thing.”

They clattered down the road in their car, which was really just a bunch of scrap metal, what with all the times they had repaired it. As their fields came into view, they stopped short. The fields, which, only yesterday, had still been planted and the crops were, if not thriving, living, were dead. The plants parched, and beaten relentlessly by the dust storm had given up on life. The crops were wilted, limp, and lifeless. Tom broke the empty silence by stuttering. “I-I-I don’t-I don’t believe it. They’re gone. All of them. Gone. All of our work, our money, our livelihood. Gone.” By the end, his voice had been reduced to a whisper. “I never thought it would happen to us.”

The two men stepped out of their car, and stopped to survey the wreckage. Nothing living still existed on the fields. They had been stripped of their life, as easily as a child is stripped of his privileges.

The two men finally uprooted themselves, and started to make their way back home. Once there, they merely sat in the car, both just sitting there. But after a while, they got out and meandered inside their house. Inside, they were stupefied, and had nothing to do. “Say, Charlie”, said Tom after what seemed like an eternity, “what do you suppose happens now? How do we eat? We have some food, but it won’t last forever. Maybe only a couple days at that. What should we do?”

“I’ve really no idea, Tom.” whispered Charlie, “I’ve really no idea. Maybe we could move, to somewhere where we could survive. Or plant some new crops.”

“That’s a great idea! Planting more crops. But wait. All of our seed was stored with the growing crops. So it is probably all gone. There’s no way that it survived the gale.”

The men didn’t give up hope though. They piled into their small car, pointed it in the right direction, and stepped on the gas pedal. They came to a screeching halt in front of the storage shed whose doors had been blown wide. In they went, and though it appeared empty, they two of them searched each and every corner for any remaining seeds. In the very last corner, Charlie found the smallest seed of seeds. But it was a seed nonetheless.

“Hey Tom! Tom! I found a seed! Wait, this is a seed right?”

“Yeah! That’s a seed all right. You’ve done it! You’ve saved us! Good job. Now, we need to be very careful about how we treat this seed. It is our only hope of survival.”