Pontypool Changes Everything

He shakes the dullness from his face and leaps to his feet. The second bale is already wagging at the sky and getting further away. It falls free of the chute and tumbles sideways. The ground grabs at it, pulling it off the platform. By the time the third bale appears the HP is standing behind it, reaching back again to the first twine. But this time he gives it only a respectful yank to encourage it along in the machine that, he knows now, is fully capable of doing most of the work. He slams the bale down beside the first, shifting his own position twice in order to preserve balance. He looks back at the second bale, now a hundred metres away, and knows that come the end of the day it will look lost and wasted in a field of neatly spaced, perfectly stacked triangles. The next bale is even less of a struggle. With these three forming the foundation of the structure, the HP slaps his full biceps optimistically and reaches over to swing out the fourth bale and begin the critical second tier. It falls on its heavy edge in the v-shape of the bales turned toward each other beneath it. The weight of the compressed hay binds their faces, pulling them towards each other, strengthening the structure. The HP heaves the last yellow obelisk into its slot. This forms an apex from which fall, on either side, the perfect sheer walls of a triangle. The last heavy bale makes the other tiers powerful. The HP kicks a heavy drop-forged pedal at the front of the platform, dropping the bars into the ground. The three edges at the base grip the earth, floating the A-frame off into the field behind the baler.

An optical effect is emerging. An illusion, one whose fidelity grows on the HP, as he creates second and third arrowheads. The field begins to flow outward in waves from the suddenly motionless platform, carrying buoys on waves that roll back from the distance. A hollow sky pulls at this figure, as he leans, in his fantasy, against the bailing chute. He raises the gloved fingers of his hand and traces an imagined coastline, as far away as the white morning moon, now a perfect pressure, light against his palm. The HP feels that he may die for seeing the field this way, and he very nearly cries. There is consciousness breaking in the soil, other people’s consciousness. A curl falling across Greg’s cheek appears in a quick spindrift of dust coming off a stone in the mud. As long as I can see the moment everything changes. As long as the HP can see the moment when everything changes, then everything in its vying is as good as home. And eventually, in an infinite cross-current of sadness and longing, every weak, blinking kindness is restored. And then, seconds later, lost. The HP feels for the first time in his short life, the millions of years it takes to produce a single, brief moment of passion.

At noon the tractor drops into neutral and Jackson jumps down. He turns off the baler and the HP realizes that in some way he has been sustained all morning by its roar. His arms throb, and his abdomen twitches. He looks down to make sure his body isn’t as huge as it feels. He feels like a perfect giant, gleaming and hard, with fingers too strong to move. Jackson stands beside the platform and removes his cap. He squats and presses a palm through the short grass.

“Ah-yeh. Don’t want it wet.”

The table is laid out with oversized plates and bowls steaming with multiple helpings of a variety of foods. A dozen steaks are bleeding down on each other beside a serving tray of ribs so tender that meat falls from the bones when the HP pulls back his chair. He fills his plate with slick, hot carrots and ice-cold beets. Harley, who has been cleaning the mow all morning, is watching television with his sister. Jackson stands, straddling the metal strip dividing the kitchen from the living room, watching the small black-and-white set. A young woman is holding a microphone under the chin of a man in a naval uniform.

“Ah-yeh. Ah-yeh. Don’t want rain.”

After lunch Harley helps Jackson on the baler and the HP is sent to the mow to wait for them to return from the field with the first load of hay. A neighbour was busy stacking bales on the truck while they ate lunch. The HP watches Harley trailing after Jackson across the field. He feels a drain of energy caused by the task of digestion. The HP walks slowly toward the barn. The younger man is picking up stones that his father kicks from the ground. He sails them through the air to bounce off an island of rocks in the middle of the field. The HP can see Jackson’s shyness even from this distance: his resignation and defiance. He’s a tightly packed, complex man who frowns when people laugh and seems never to have exhaled in his life.