yes, when I was young the world was flat, flat as a board. you could push a wheelbarrow across it all the way and you’d never be troubled by the slightest hill. would never get a rest on a downslope either. no, it was flat and flat. you could walk all the way across it if you wanted to. of course you didn’t. it was dangerous, there, at the edges of the world.

the flatness got into your bones. we were a flat kind of people back then. our doors were narrow. and our animals had a paperish look. our dog could slip through cracks in the walls. the fences had to be solid and thick or the cows would get out. and in winter the livestock had to stay in our big shed or they’d be blown over by the wind. in a flat world there were no hills or valleys to slow it down. if you weren’t careful outside, it might pick you up and sweep you over the horizon, too.

yes, it was dangerous back then. but when I was young there were good things, too. the sun was underneath us at night, and its heat rose through the ground and warmed the grass between our bare toes. the rain was fresher and fell slowly, as though it was taking its time to look at the wide, flat earth. and the furrows that the plow made in springtime, those little hills and valleys, were miracles the size of molehills – right there, in my own backyard.