Alfred was no stranger to being poor. He had had his fair share of empty pockets and restless nights with an empty stomach to know that it sucked. But each time he hit rock bottom he had always had come out on top in the end, healthier, happier, and richer than before. So, when the market crashed all those years ago, he had been devastated and worried, but he had faith that things would get better in time, and the good times would come again. Sure, this was one of the worst times of his life, but if he worked hard and kept a positive attitude he would make it out ok.
And at first, that's exactly what happened. He had a good job as a farmer with a large amount of land and his crops were growing in nicely, even if the depression was hitting his income hard. But to compensate that he had simply planted more crops to make up for it. No big deal. In fact, most of his neighbors had done the same thing, and for a little while things weren't looking all that bad. A little extra work and effort and they would be fine.
But Alfred had started to notice that the depression was taking a toll on him. He hadn't noticed the changes at first, other than the fact that he hadn't been feeling well since the day the market had crashed. (Not that that was surprising, it wasn't unusual for him to feel off during economic recessions), but a few months after the crash Alfred noticed that he wasn't as strong as usual. He had been trying to move a piece of farm equipment to make room for something, but when he realized that he couldn't move it, he had realized how bad the situation was. This wasn't something he could just laugh off, this was seriously affecting him. At first he had freaked out, but after a day or two he calmed down, chalking it up to being in an economic crises, and as always, he figured he could just wait it out and in no time he would back to his old self.
Then came the physical changes. It took a whole year for him to notice those, because unlike the physical aspect, it wasn't as noticeable. It wasn't until one of his neighbors pointed out that he wasn't looking well that Alfred saw them. His usually golden hair had dulled into an almost light sandy color, and his eyes seemed to have dulled a little. He had no idea why that was happening, seeing as it had never happened in the past. However, it didn't seem to be hurting him in anyway, so he ignored it because he had other things to worry about. Like the fact that his crops had been doing unusually bad.
The year it had started, there had been a drought. There hadn't been a good amount of rainfall for a while, so his crops had suffered pretty badly. Not only that, he had lost quite a bit of money because of this, so he had tried to plant even more crops to try and compensate. His neighbors had done the same, and they were all hopeful that the next season would yield them a better crop. But that's not what happened. That's not what had happened at all. The rain still hadn't come, and the soil was drying out. And there seemed to be a build up of dust forming everywhere. But that wasn't the worst of it.
It had started with an innocent cough. Alfred hadn't even thought about it at the time. But as his crops kept dying, the worse his cough became. The more crops he planted, the worse it got. It was infuriating, and Alfred's neighbors were growing worried about him, but Alfred waved it off as nothing more than an irritating cold that wouldn't go away. Until the day he had been talking to one of his neighbors, and he started coughing, and didn't stop. And to everyone's shock, he had started coughing up dust. Now freaking out, he went back home to try and figure out what the fuck was happening. But as he reached his house, he saw something in the distance. A huge black line was on the horizon, and as he watched it, he realized, to his absolute horror, that it was a huge, miles long, miles high cloud of dust bellowing towards him. It was solid black, dense and heavy, and when it hit him, he found himself choking on the air. The dust blasted his skin as the wind howled around him, and the whole world went dark. Trying to see in front of him, he put his hand out to see, but he couldn't even make out his hand. He heard one of his neighbors screaming that the end of the world was coming, and Alfred couldn't agree more.
When the storm had finally passed, Alfred was shaken as well as everyone in town. Everything was covered in dust. The farm animals, the houses inside and out, the roads, just everything. Crops were torn out of the ground and whole farms were ruined, many people claiming that the end was here. Most people hoped that something like that would never happen again, but it did. Again, and again, and again, and again. Crops didn't grow anymore, the soil was being blown away by the storms. There was no rain anymore. People started to lose hope, and some people ran out of money.
After putting up with a few storms, some people just gave up, packed up their things, sold their farms and moved away to look for better lives. Many more people, including Alfred, decided to simply wait out the storms, and hope for the rain to return. So they adapted to their new way of life. The dust was the worst part of life. It got everywhere. No matter how well people plugged up the holes in their houses, the dust always found a way into people's homes. After a storm, Alfred had to sweep his house for hours just to get the dust out. Not only that, he had to beat his bed-sheets and cloths to just get a little bit of the sand out of them. He often had to put his cups upside down in the cupboards, so dust wouldn't get into them, but it didn't really help. The dust always found a way into his food and drinks, and often he would feel like he had grains of sand in his mouth.
Mar 16Animals were dying after each storm, and when people would cut them open they would find sand in the animals' stomachs. Worse still was the fact that people were suffering from breathing in the dust, developing Dust pneumonia. To put it simply, people where breathing in so much dust it was filling their lungs. People started to die from it, and in order to fight it people started to wear wet rags around their noses and mouths during the storms, but it only helped a little bit. Some people went nuts over the dust. Mothers who swept all day and all night would break down in tears and throw their brooms out of their houses in a fit of rage, men tried to shovel it away, but no matter how hard people tried the storms just blew the dust back into everyone's faces.
Eventually, people just gave up. All of Alfred's neighbors packed their things and moved away to California hoping to find a better life there. And eventually, Alfred was all alone. And he tried to weather it out, he tried. Oh god did he try. The rain would come again, he would tell himself as he desperately waited to the rain to return. And his cough only got worse. There wasn't a day he didn't feel like he was suffocating, or was coughing up dust, or his skin was ripped apart by the dust storms, or his world was plunged into darkness for days at a time. But he held on to the hope that better things were just around the corner.
Finally, one day as Alfred sat on his porch, wheezing with every breath he took, he looked around what used to be one of the most beautiful places he had ever seen. What used to be sprawling grasslands and farms was gone. It was just dust. Grey, dark, dry dust. Where there once was life, was nothing more than smothering dust. The land was dead. And as he slowly realized he was waiting for something that was never going to happen, that this whole time he and so many others were waiting for a miracle that was never going to happen. It was hopeless. As he came to this realization, he spotted that familiar black cloud on the horizon, and something in him just broke.
"GO AWAY!" Alfred screamed, glaring at the rapidly approaching storm. "Haven't you done enough?! Haven't you taken away enough?! What else is there to take?! What more do you want?! It's not fair! It's not fucking fair! Aren't enough of my people suffering, haven't you caused enough
damage?!
Standing up, Alfred pointed at the storm, tears building up in the corners of his eyes. "I DIDN'T ASK FOR THIS! NOBODY FUCKING ASKED FOR THIS TO HAPPEN! WHAT DID I DO WRONG? WHAT THE HELL DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS?! ANSWER ME!" As he shouted the last words, his voice cracked, and Alfred started to cry. "ANSWER ME GOD DAMN IT! IT'S NOT FAIR!"
Falling to his knees, Alfred sobbed as the storm finally hit him, suffocating him and causing the sunlight to vanish and for the world to go dark, but Alfred barely noticed. He couldn't see anyways because of his tears, and he couldn't breath due to his sobbing. Hell, he couldn't even hear himself over the howling winds. If anything, the only thing he could feel was the sand blasting his skin, but at that point, he couldn't even bring himself to care anymore. He was already in so much pain, what was a little more going to do? Let the damned dust bury him for all he cared. It honestly couldn't be much worse than what he was suffering through. He didn't know how long he sat there, but at some point, he made it into his house, where he finally passed out.
When he woke up, he felt like absolute shit. His lungs felt like sandpaper, his head hurt, his skin was covered with cuts and bruises, and worst of all he felt an overwhelming feeling of defeat. Wheezing out a sigh, he dragged himself up and walked over to his dresser. He had had enough. He was going back to D.C., and he was going to figure out a way to fix this mess. But he couldn't take the dust anymore. It was going to kill him. After he packed his things, he walked out of the house with his suitcase and he took one more hard look at what used to be his farm, then he got into his truck and drove off, determined to never come back to this hell hole again.
A/N: OKAY, this is the last one for now. I promise that the next one is going to be a happy chapter to balance this one out. Again, I apologize for leaving for so long, but due to my computer being broken I couldn't get to my rough drafts and it will be a cold day in hell before I rewrite any of my chapters by memory. The next chapter will come out soon! By the way, The dust bowl was one of the worst things to ever happen to America. It was due to a combination of drought, shit luck, and poor farming techniques. Fun fact about me, I actually took a agriculture class during middle school, and this was the topic I liked the most during the class.