We’ve all heard them; rumors about co-workers, friends, family, neighbors.  Rumors can be devastating to the lives around us.

Rumors

“Did you hear?” Amanda whispered to me over the cantaloupes.

I was thinking about the cantaloupe so I absently said, “No, what rumor?”

She sidled closer, “Elizabeth Crowne is a radical subversive.”

I put the cantaloupe down, staring at her. “What do you mean?”

She glanced around the market, making me nervous so I glanced around to see who was near.  Amanda whispered, “I heard from Elaine, her husband works in the Homeland Security office, and Elizabeth is being investigated.”

I think my jaw dropped open because I had to snap it shut.  “That’s ridiculous.  How can she be a subversive?  I’ve worked with her for years.”

Amanda sniffed.  “Suit yourself, but you need to be careful.  If they’re investigating her, they’ll be investigating you next.”

With that, she picked up her basket and turned her back on me, marching up the aisle.  All I could do was stand there and watch her leave.  Elizabeth, subversive?  I’ve worked with her since college.  What could Homeland be investigating her for?

#

I arrived at the library, where Elizabeth doing some research.  I sat down at the table next to her.  She shoved the book she was looking at to the center of the table.

“Hi, Ruth, how was the market?”

I looked at her, “I heard something interesting while I was there.”

She turned her chair toward me, her head tilted to one side, ready to listen.  I took a big breath.  “I heard a rumor Elizabeth.  I heard that you’re being investigated by Homeland.”  My stomach was in knots; being investigated by Homeland was no laughing matter.

She sat back in her chair with a big sigh.  “I was hoping I could fly under the radar a little longer.”

I could only stare.  “So it’s true?”  I looked around the library; no one seemed to be paying us any attention.

I leaned forward in my seat, trying to keep my voice low and calm, “You’re the best person I know Elizabeth.  Your work is top notch; you’re on the university planning board, what on earth are you doing that could be subversive?”

She smiled, “You are so kind hearted Ruth.”  She paused, her hands on the wooden arms of her chair, fingers of her right hand drumming on the end of the arm.  “It’s about our choices.  Everything is controlled by big business or the government.  It’s time we took back our basic rights.”

“What do you mean our basic rights?  We haven’t lost our rights!”

She looked at me as though I was a child, shaking her head, her eyes so sad.  “Of course we have Ruth, where does your food come from?”

The sudden switch of topic in the middle of the sentence confused me.  “The market of course.”

She nodded, “Do you grow anything, lettuce in a window box?  A pot with a tomato plant?”

I shook my head, “No, I don’t have time for that.”

She leaned over and took my hand, “Even if you wanted to Ruth, you can’t.  Slowly, over the last fifty years, it’s become quietly illegal for anyone not an approved mega-farm operator, to grow their own food.  Even if it’s just a tomato plant in a pot or a small herb garden, you can’t do it.”

I thought back to childhood visits with my grandmother.  She always had a garden and every summer morning we’d be out there; picking bugs off of the plants, picking vegetables, weeding.  Later, in the kitchen, we’d wash and prepare those vegetables for the freezer or for canning or to have with lunch and supper that day.  I loved doing that stuff with Grandma.

“What happened, Elizabeth?  How did this happen?

She looked so sad, “People got lazy.  It was easier to go to the grocery store or market than to do it themselves.  Giant agri-businesses took over more and more of the food industry.  They lobbied politicians to make more and more restrictive laws.  And all of it was done quietly.  Anyone who protested was belittled, fined, and after protective laws passed, even jailed for questioning why giant corporations controlled our food.”

I was confused, “But what are you doing that’s subversive Elizabeth?”

She laughed and patted my hand.  “Oh it’s simple.  I’m growing a garden!”

The End

711 Words

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