Stolen Wheat Chaff

The air conditioning in the F-150 died somewhere past the Perimeter Highway. Edith hit the dashboard with the heel of her hand. It did nothing. The vent blew a weak stream of hot dust directly into Toby’s face. He did not complain. He just rolled the window down, letting the roar of the highway drown out the silence between them.

The landscape flattened out. Winnipeg fell away behind them, replaced by the endless, blinding green of the summer prairie. Heat shimmered off the asphalt in aggressive waves. Toby stared at the side mirror. The glass was cracked down the middle, splitting Edith’s reflection into two uneven halves. She was gripping the steering wheel tight enough to turn her knuckles white. She wore a clean white tank top. Toby wore a faded black t-shirt that had a hole near the collar. He had picked at it nervously for the last twenty minutes. The hole was getting bigger.

"Are you sure about the turnoff?" Edith asked. She had to raise her voice over the wind.

"It is the next gravel road after the weigh station," Toby said. He did not look at her.

"My dad is going to kill me if we blow a tire out here. He specifically said not to take the truck out of the city limits."

"He won't know. Unless you tell him. You always tell him everything."

"I don't tell him everything," Edith snapped.

"You told him about the suspension in tenth grade."

"That was three years ago, Toby. Move on."

Toby looked out the window. The weigh station flashed by. "Turn here. Here. Turn right now."

Edith slammed on the brakes. The heavy truck fishtailed slightly on the loose gravel as she wrenched the wheel. A cloud of white dust billowed up behind them, coating the rear window. The truck bounced violently over deep ruts in the dirt road. Toby braced his hands against the dashboard. His fingernails were bitten down to the quick, dirt packed under the edges. He hadn't washed his hands since he left his house. There hadn't been any soap left in the bathroom dispenser anyway.

"Slow down," Toby said. "You are going to rip the oil pan out."

"I am going as slow as I can," Edith said. Her voice was tight. "This road is destroyed."

They drove in silence for another mile. The dust settled on their sweat. Toby wiped his forehead, feeling the grit grind into his skin. He looked at the floorboards. Two empty burlap sacks sat bunched up near his boots. They looked pathetic. He needed them to be full. He needed them to be heavy.

"So," Edith said. She swallowed hard. "I paid the deposit for the dorm."

Toby stopped breathing for a second. He kept his eyes on the road. "Toronto."

"Yeah. University of Toronto. The residence is right on campus. It's supposed to be really nice. Historic or whatever. They have a meal plan."

Toby felt his stomach knot. A meal plan. Three meals a day, swiped on a plastic card, paid for by her father's credit card. He thought about the loaf of bread on his kitchen counter. The expiration date was four days ago. The green spots were small, easily pinched off, but the bread tasted like damp basement air.

"Good for you," Toby said. His voice was completely flat.

"You don't have to sound so thrilled."

"What do you want me to say, Edith? Congratulations on leaving. Congratulations on the meal plan. I am thrilled for you."

Edith downshifted. The transmission whined in protest. "You could at least pretend to care. We used to talk about getting out of here together."

"We were twelve. We also talked about building a submarine out of garbage cans."

"It's just... I leave in three weeks. And you haven't even looked at me since I picked you up."

"Look out," Toby said, pointing through the windshield.

The research station loomed at the end of the road. It was surrounded by a rusted chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Half the fence had collapsed under the weight of overgrown vines. Behind it stood the greenhouse. It was massive, a cathedral of steel and glass, but it was completely shattered. Hail storms and vandals had destroyed the roof years ago. Jagged teeth of glass clung to the metal frames, catching the harsh afternoon sun.

Edith parked the truck in the tall grass near the collapsed section of the fence. She killed the engine. The silence was immediate and heavy, broken only by the ticking of the cooling metal and the drone of cicadas.

"Grab the bags," Toby said. He opened his door and stepped out into the sweltering heat.

Edith grabbed the keys and shoved them into her pocket. She grabbed the burlap sacks from the floor and followed him. The grass was waist-high and dry, whipping against their jeans. They climbed over the rusted fence. Toby caught his t-shirt on a piece of wire, tearing the hole at the collar even wider. He cursed under his breath but didn't stop moving.

The approach to the greenhouse was littered with debris. Rusted wheelbarrows, plastic pots bleached white by the sun, and tangled lengths of black irrigation tubing half-buried in the dirt. Toby kicked a pot out of the way. It shattered into brittle shards.

They stepped through the empty doorframe of the greenhouse. The temperature inside was instantly ten degrees hotter. The air was thick, heavy, and dead.

"Whoa," Edith whispered.

The floor of the greenhouse had vanished under a sea of dark green foliage. The experimental crops, abandoned by the university five years ago, had mutated and thrived. Massive, sprawling vines choked the aisles. Tomatoes the size of softballs hung heavy on thick, hairy stalks. They were a violent, unnatural red. Beside them, zucchini plants had grown to monstrous proportions, their leaves as large as umbrellas, hiding gourds that looked like green artillery shells.

"They said the soil was contaminated," Edith said, staring at the tomatoes. "That is why they shut it down."

"They shut it down because the grant money dried up," Toby said. He dropped to his knees in the dirt. He pulled a knife from his pocket and cut a massive zucchini free. It weighed at least ten pounds. He shoved it into the burlap sack. "Contaminated or not, it is calories. Start picking."

Edith hesitated. She looked at the giant vegetables, then at Toby's desperate, frantic movements. She knelt beside a tomato plant and reached out. The skin of the tomato was warm, almost feverish. She snapped it off the vine. It was heavy in her palm.

For a while, they just worked. The repetitive motion of finding, cutting, and bagging the vegetables fell into a rhythm. The burlap sacks began to fill. The physical labor was distracting. Toby wiped sweat from his eyes, his breathing heavy.

"Do you remember when we stole Mrs. Gable's crab apples?" Edith asked suddenly. Her voice echoed slightly in the glass structure.

Toby paused, a knife halfway through a thick vine. He looked over his shoulder. Edith had a smudge of dirt across her cheek. For a second, she looked exactly like she did when she was ten years old.

"Yeah. I remember. We ate so many we both threw up behind the bleachers."

"You threw up. I just felt dizzy."

"You threw up on my shoes, Edith."

Edith laughed. It was a real laugh, sharp and clear. Toby felt a painful tug in his chest. He missed that sound. He realized he hadn't heard it in months. He smiled, a genuine, tired smile.

"They were terrible apples," Toby said.

"The worst. But we were so proud of ourselves."

Toby turned back to the vines. "Yeah. We were."

He reached for another zucchini. As his hand parted the giant leaves, he froze.

Something moved in the shadows at the far end of the greenhouse.

Toby squinted through the glaring sunlight and the dense green foliage. At the broken rear entrance, standing perfectly still, was a coyote.

It wasn't a healthy animal. Its coat was patchy and gray, clinging to ribs that showed clearly through the skin. Its yellow eyes were locked directly on Toby.

"Edith," Toby said softly.

"What? I found a whole cluster of tomatoes back here."

"Edith. Stand up slowly. Leave the bag."

The tone of his voice made her stop. She stood up. She looked past him.

A second coyote stepped through the broken glass beside the first. Then a third. They didn't make a sound. They just stood there, blocking the rear exit, their heads lowered, watching the two teenagers.

"Toby," Edith whispered. Her voice trembled. "The front door."

Toby slowly turned his head. Two more coyotes had slipped in through the front entrance while they were working. They were entirely boxed in.

The Feral Pack

The heat inside the greenhouse suddenly felt suffocating. Toby’s chest tightened. He gripped the handle of his pocket knife. It was a pathetic weapon. The blade was barely two inches long. The coyotes at the front entrance took a synchronized step forward. Their claws clicked softly against the concrete foundation that peeked through the dirt.

"What do we do?" Edith asked. Her back was pressed against the rusted metal frame of a planting table.

"Do not run," Toby said. His jaw was clenched. "If you run, they will chase. They are hungry."

"They look sick."

"That makes them worse."

The lead coyote at the front let out a low, rattling growl. It sounded like stones grinding together in a tin can. It bared its teeth. The gums were pale and black.

Toby scanned the immediate area. The greenhouse was a trap. The glass walls were too high to climb, and the broken panes were jagged guillotines. The only exits were blocked. He looked at the rusted planting table. Underneath it, half-buried in dry soil and dead leaves, was a heavy red cylinder.

An old fire extinguisher.

"Edith. Keep your eyes on them. Do not blink. Do not look away."

Toby slowly crouched down. The coyotes tensed, their ears pinning back. One of them snapped its jaws. Toby reached under the table. His fingers brushed the metal cylinder. It was heavy. He gripped the neck and pulled. It was stuck in the dirt. He yanked harder. The extinguisher popped free, sending a cloud of dust into the air.

He stood up, holding the extinguisher by the handle. The safety pin was rusted in place.

"What is that going to do?" Edith asked, panic edging into her voice. "Is it even pressurized?"

"I don't know," Toby said. He hooked his finger into the metal ring of the pin and pulled. It didn't budge. He gritted his teeth and jerked his hand. The rusty pin snapped, cutting the inside of his finger. He ignored the sharp sting.

The lead coyote lunged.

It was a short, testing charge. It covered five feet in a split second, stopping just out of kicking range, barking sharply. Edith screamed and flinched backward, hitting the glass wall behind her.

Toby stepped in front of her. He aimed the black rubber hose at the coyote and squeezed the metal trigger.

Nothing happened.

The handle was stiff. The coyote lowered its head to charge again. Toby slammed his palm against the top of the trigger with all his weight.

A deafening, shrieking hiss echoed through the glasshouse. A massive, violent cloud of thick yellow chemical powder blasted out of the hose. It hit the lead coyote directly in the face. The animal yelped, a high-pitched sound of pure terror, and scrambled backward, clawing blindly at its own eyes. The yellow powder expanded rapidly, filling the narrow aisle, choking the air with the bitter, metallic taste of dry chemicals.

The other coyotes panicked. The loud noise and the blinding chemical cloud broke their nerve. They scrambled over each other, slipping on the plant vines, and bolted out the broken front entrance.

Toby spun around. The coyotes at the rear exit were already gone, fleeing into the tall grass.

Toby dropped the extinguisher. It clattered against the concrete, still hissing weakly, a small pile of yellow powder pooling on the dirt. His heart was hammering against his ribs so hard it hurt. He looked at Edith. She was pale, her eyes wide, coughing as the chemical dust drifted over them.

"Are you okay?" Toby asked. His voice was shaking.

Edith nodded, covering her mouth with her hand. She coughed again, tears streaming down her face. "Yeah. Yeah. Are they gone?"

"They are gone."

Edith slid down the wall of the greenhouse, collapsing into the dirt. She pulled her knees to her chest. She looked at the yellow powder, then at the massive zucchini in the burlap sack.

"This is insane," she said. Her voice cracked. "This is completely insane, Toby. We could have been mauled over a bag of dirty vegetables."

"They are not dirty. They are food."

"It is garbage!" Edith yelled. She threw her hands up. "We are stealing mutant vegetables from a condemned building! Why are we doing this?"

"Because I need them!" Toby yelled back. The echo of his voice rang off the remaining glass panes.

Silence crashed down on them again. The chemical dust settled on the broad green leaves.

Edith stared at him. The panic in her eyes shifted into something else. Something colder. "You could get a job."

Toby let out a short, harsh laugh. He looked at the ceiling. "A job. Right. Just walk into the job store and get a job."

"Places are hiring, Toby. The hardware store in town needs cashiers. I saw the sign."

"I applied there three weeks ago, Edith. They told me I needed a permanent address. They wanted a background check. My dad's truck is sitting on cinder blocks in the front yard and the power got shut off on Tuesday. I don't have a clean shirt for an interview."

Edith looked down at her hands. "I didn't know about the power."

"You don't know about a lot of things. Because you don't ask. You just talk about dorm deposits and meal plans."

"I am allowed to be excited about my life!" Edith stood up, brushing the dirt off her jeans. "I am allowed to want things. Just because your life is falling apart doesn't mean I have to put mine on hold."

"I never asked you to put it on hold. But you don't have to act like you're better than me."

"I don't act like I'm better than you!"

"Yes, you do! You look at me like I'm a charity project. You drove me out here today because you feel guilty. You want to give the poor kid a ride in your nice truck before you leave for Toronto and forget I exist."

Edith’s face flushed. She stepped toward him. "That is not true. You're my best friend."

"Was," Toby corrected. "I was your best friend. Now I'm just the guy you used to know."

Edith’s lip trembled. She looked away, staring at the shattered glass. "I'm terrified, Toby."

"Of what? Toronto?"

"Of ending up stuck here. Like you." The words hung in the sweltering air. Once they were out, she couldn't take them back. She covered her mouth, her eyes welling with tears. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."

Toby stared at her. His expression didn't change. He just looked tired. He bent down and grabbed the neck of the burlap sack. He slung it over his shoulder. The muscles in his back strained under the weight.

"Grab your bag," Toby said quietly. "We need to hit the wheat fields before the sun goes down."

He didn't wait for her. He walked out of the greenhouse, stepping over the yellow chemical stain, leaving her standing alone in the humid green ruins.

Blisters in the Wheat

The wheat field was located half a mile behind the greenhouse. It wasn't a neat, agricultural grid. Years of neglect had turned it into a wild, chaotic sea of golden stalks, choked with creeping weeds and thistle. The sun was beginning its descent, casting long, bruised shadows across the prairie. The light turned the sky a deep, bruised purple, fading into orange at the horizon.

Toby walked ahead, dragging the empty second sack. Edith followed ten paces behind, carrying the bag of vegetables. The silence between them was an open wound.

They reached the edge of the wheat. Toby dropped his bag. He didn't have a scythe. He didn't have tools. He just reached out, grabbed a handful of the rough, dry wheat stalks near the top, and yanked. The seed heads snapped off in his fist. He dumped them into the burlap sack.

He reached out and did it again. Grab. Pull. Dump.

Edith set her bag down. She watched him for a minute. His movements were mechanical, punishing. He wasn't just harvesting; he was attacking the plants.

She stepped into the field beside him. She grabbed a handful of wheat and pulled. The sharp awns of the wheat heads dug into her soft palms. The stalks were tough, resisting her pull. When they finally snapped, the recoil sent a shock up her forearm. She dumped the handful into the bag.

Ten minutes passed. The sun sank lower. The heat broke, replaced by a cooling wind that ruffled the tops of the wheat, making a sound like rushing water.

Edith's hands began to burn. The coarse wheat stalks were slicing into her skin. Tiny red welts formed across her palms. She ignored it. She kept pulling.

Toby was moving faster now. Sweat soaked through his torn shirt. He grabbed a massive handful of stalks, but his grip slipped. A sharp thistle hidden in the wheat sliced deep into his thumb.

He stopped. He looked at his hand. A bright line of crimson welled up, dripping down his wrist, staining the dirt under his fingernails.

He didn't bandage it. He didn't wipe it off. He just stared at the blood for a long time. Then, his shoulders dropped. The mechanical tension holding him together seemed to snap. He fell to his knees in the dirt, surrounded by the towering wheat.

He buried his face in his bleeding hands. His shoulders shook. He didn't make a sound, but the violent, silent weeping was worse than if he had screamed.

Edith dropped the wheat she was holding. She rushed over and dropped to her knees beside him. She reached out, her hand hovering over his back, afraid to touch him.

"Toby," she whispered.

He shook his head, pulling his knees to his chest, trying to make himself as small as possible. "I can't do it," he choked out. His voice was muffled behind his hands. "I can't do it anymore."

"It's okay. We have enough. The bags are full. We can go back."

"It's not the wheat, Edith." He lowered his hands. His face was streaked with dirt, sweat, and blood from his thumb. His eyes were wide and frantic. "My parents are changing the locks."

Edith froze. "What?"

"On the first of the month. They told me yesterday. They can't afford the rent. They're moving into my aunt's basement in Selkirk. There's only one room. They told me I have to figure it out. I'm eighteen now. I have to figure it out."

Edith stared at him, her mind struggling to process the words. "They're kicking you out? Just like that?"

"I don't have anywhere to go, Edith. I have zero dollars. I have no job. I have no car. I don't know what to do when it gets cold. Winter is coming. I don't know how to survive the winter."

He gestured wildly at the half-full bag of wheat. "I thought... I thought if I stockpiled enough food, I could squat somewhere. Maybe the old train depot. If I didn't have to buy food, I could save up for a bus ticket. I don't know. It was a stupid plan. I'm an idiot."

He hit the side of his own head with the heel of his hand. Edith grabbed his wrist, stopping him.

"Stop," she said. Her voice was firm. "Stop it."

She held his bloody hand. She looked at the torn clothes, the exhaustion etched deep into his face, the absolute terror in his eyes. She felt a profound, crushing sense of helplessness.

She had a bank account with three thousand dollars her dad had saved for her textbooks. She had a meal plan. She had a dorm room waiting for her, with clean sheets and a radiator that worked.

And Toby had a bag of stolen, unrefined wheat and a cut thumb.

She realized, with brutal clarity, that she could not save him. She could buy him a burger on the way home. She could give him twenty bucks from her wallet. But she could not fix this. The divide between them wasn't just a university acceptance letter. It was a chasm of systemic survival. She was standing on the edge of a cliff, watching him fall, and the only thing she was holding out to him was a handful of weeds.

"I'm sorry," Edith said. Her voice broke. Tears spilled over her eyelashes, cutting tracks through the dust on her cheeks. "I'm so sorry, Toby."

Toby looked at her. He saw the pity in her eyes, but he also saw the genuine grief. He squeezed her hand back. His grip was weak.

"It's not your fault," he said quietly. "I know it's not your fault."

They sat there in the dirt as the sun finally dipped below the horizon, plunging the field into a deep, shadowy twilight. The wind picked up, chilling the sweat on their skin.

"Come on," Toby said, wiping his face with the back of his arm. He pushed himself up off the ground. He grabbed the top of the burlap sack. "Let's load the truck. I want to go home."

Home. The word sounded absurd, but neither of them pointed it out.

Unbruised Tomatoes

They carried the sacks back to the truck in complete darkness. The moon was a thin sliver, offering almost no light. Edith used the flashlight app on her phone to guide them back through the overgrown grass, stepping carefully over the rusted fence.

Lifting the bags into the bed of the F-150 took everything they had left. The zucchini and tomatoes were incredibly heavy. Toby hauled his end up, his boots slipping in the gravel, his injured thumb leaving dark smears on the tailgate. When the heavy sacks hit the metal bed with a dull thud, Toby leaned against the truck, panting, staring up at the starless sky.

Edith closed the tailgate. The latch clicked shut. It sounded very loud in the dark.

They got into the cab. Edith turned the key. The engine roared to life, the headlights cutting a harsh, bright cone through the black prairie. She shifted into drive and pulled away from the shattered research station.

The drive back into Winnipeg was suffocating. The earlier awkwardness was gone, replaced by a heavy, terminal exhaustion. There was no radio. There was no wind coming through the windows, only the cool night air. Toby kept his head leaned against the glass, watching the black fields slowly transition back into civilization.

Streetlights appeared. Then gas stations. Then the neon glow of Portage Avenue. The harsh artificial lights washed over the interior of the cab, painting Toby’s exhausted face in alternating flashes of red, yellow, and sickly white.

Edith drove through the suburban grid of Transcona. The houses here were small, but the lawns were mowed. Sprinklers ticked rhythmically in the dark. She turned onto Toby's street. The streetlights here were mostly burnt out.

She pulled into his driveway. The concrete was heavily cracked, weeds pushing up through the fissures. The house was completely dark. No porch light. No light in the front window. The lawn was dead. The truck sitting on cinder blocks in the yard looked like a rotting metal carcass.

Edith put the truck in park. She left the engine running.

Toby unbuckled his seatbelt. He opened the door, letting the dome light illuminate the cab. He walked to the back of the truck and lowered the tailgate. Edith got out and walked to the back to help him.

Toby untied the first burlap sack. He reached in and began pulling out vegetables. He set them on the tailgate.

He picked up a massive, perfect tomato. The skin was flawless, bright red, entirely unbruised. He handed it to Edith.

"Here," he said.

She looked at the tomato in her hands. "Toby, I don't need this. You keep it all."

"Take it," Toby said. His voice left no room for argument. He picked up another unbruised tomato and handed it to her. Then a medium-sized, perfectly green zucchini.

He was giving her the best of the haul. He was keeping the dented, overripe, and misshapen ones for himself.

"Toby, please," Edith whispered.

"My mom used to make tomato sandwiches," Toby said. He wasn't looking at her. He was staring at the pile in the back of the truck. "Just white bread, mayonnaise, and thick slices of tomato. Salt and pepper. It was really good. You should make one before you leave."

Edith hugged the vegetables to her chest. They felt heavy. They felt like a terrible, immense weight.

"Thank you for the ride," Toby said. He grabbed the two heavy burlap sacks, hauling them over his shoulders. He staggered slightly under the weight.

"Toby..." Edith started. She didn't know how to finish the sentence. Have a good life? Stay safe? Don't freeze to death?

"Have a good time in Toronto, Edith," Toby said. He turned and started walking up the cracked driveway toward the dark house.

Edith stood by the tailgate for a long time. She watched him walk away. He didn't look back. He reached the front porch, set the bags down, and dug his keys out of his pocket.

Edith walked back to the driver's side. She got in. She put the unbruised tomatoes on the passenger seat. They sat there, bright red against the gray upholstery.

She shifted the truck into reverse and backed out of the driveway. She paused in the street, shifting into drive. She looked up at the rearview mirror.

In the reflection, illuminated only by the red glow of her taillights, she saw Toby drag the heavy bags through the front door. The door closed behind him, shutting him inside the dark, powerless house.

Edith hit the gas and drove away.