The 42

We drove the square cut wooden posts, by hand, almost two meters into the rock strewn hillside to serve as anchors for something new the owner wanted to experiment with. The first set of posts was fairly easy because the thick layer of topsoil had been dampened by the first rain of the season but the further from the base of the hill we got, the harder and rockier the earth beneath us became and we were forced to dig down using small hand shovels until there was a hole large enough to swallow a man and only then could we place the post and fill in the extra space around it. This was strange country. Almost as strange as the high wages we were receiving for the unusual project we now found our selves a part of. I for one had learned to never count on when the rain would come, and sometimes it never did.

What we did count on was the ingenuity of a strange plot developed by a scientific man that had called on the owner three months back. He wore a black suit, and a constant look on his face that hinted at insanity, but, like his suit, was constantly and consciously being smoothed over. The moment I saw that he didn't wear a tie I knew he meant business and that I would never understand the intricately interwoven strands of genius that formed the tapestry of succulent ideas within his head.

When all 42 posts were set into the ground, spray painted black and labeled accordingly, the man in the suit returned with a set of ropes that he carefully arranged in a semi circle at the apex of the hill. He then directed each of us to find a rope and, without touching the fibrous material, to sit facing the large pumpkin field that spread about a quarter of a mile north of where we sat.

After a closer examination of the ropes themselves I noticed a strange feeling slowly settling over me.

"If you haven't felt the static properties of your electromagnetic condensers yet then you will soon enough," said the man in the black suit, with sweat slowly trickling down the top of his bald head into the creases just above his brow, "Gentlemen, today is the day we make our own gods." He twitched as he said it, as if the words gave him a rush of pleasure that he could not conceal.

There was a mustard stain on his white shirt, and he didn't seem to mind.