Our farm was on a wide spread of land, many acres, but only a few people left with a few animals to tend to. The cabins and barns had been there for hundreds of years, it was said and believed, and still stood sturdy. I remember hearing the stories of our grandfathers and grandmothers and how they had tilled these very fields, admiring the trees that stretched for miles in the distance. As a child, I would stand on our family’s porch and stare at the thick forests, wondering what lay beyond. And now, I could see.

They had come and demolished the forests, bringing buzzing saws and large machines none of us had ever seen before. Now, children sat on their porches and looked as metal buildings began to rise into the sky, impossibly quickly and improbably tall. They watched as the trees fell, spreading open the wide expanse of sky to showcase concrete, smoke, and pollution.

Our farm would be the last to go.