The woman nearly stumbled going up the steep hill. The bushel of rice balanced gingerly on her head, she tried to notice any loose pebbles on the dry, dusty ground as she made her way. The bucket of water she carried in her right hand felt heavier today.

The children were laughing and playing as they headed back to their village. A drop of sweat burned her eye as she daydreamed back to the time of her youth. The hill was not as steep then; the ground was not hard, and dry. The land of her people had been slowly worked to death, until all the nourishment in the ground had gone away. The new administration had promised that they would no longer have to work their fields; the government would put the poor to work to handle all the headaches. They could just relax and enjoy their families. They no longer had to make payments to the lenders for their property, the government men had said it was unfair to ask them to pay when the government really owned the land anyway. Let the government use some of that money you have paid all these years to make your payments. Let the rich pay their share to support your family.

The new administration also made the rich contribute more and more of their money to pay the poor to work. There was time to read a book, to venture down through the forest to the sea. There was plenty to eat too. The government men came around every day to make sure all was well.

The men in the village began to drink too much. They got fat and began to argue amongst themselves. It was true they had no incentive to work; if they even tried to give their ideas the government men just told them to be quiet. The government knew what crops to plant to get the highest yearly harvest for each field. The health of the people in the village began to suffer.

The men in the village began to notice the workers in the fields planting the wrong plants, the wrong time. The village men knew how to nourish the soil. The ground needed rest sometimes. You had to rotate the planting. The very smart government men would not listen to the men of the village, and the poor working the fields did not listen to the very smart government men.

The harvest began to weaken a little each year, while the taxes began to grow stronger each year. The men of the village began to complain about the higher taxes, while the government men complained about the cost of the free health care they provided for the people. The cost of free housing, guaranteed lifetime jobs, subsidized foods for everyone. How dare the villagers complain if the government needed a little more of the people’s money each year.

Soon, it was against the law to meet together to complain. The prisons were filling up with malcontents who did not know when they were well off. The families left behind soon found themselves working someone else’s fields. Mostly the fields of the government men.

The woman arrived to her house in the village and began to prepare the evening meal. Tomorrow they would travel to the capital city and visit her husband in prison. He had been sent away when he demanded the government men leave his property and take the stupid poor workers with them. She tried once again to daydream of long ago. When she could hear her husband, singing as the sweat poured down his back working in their fields. The times they would sit up late in the night and work out the future of their family and farm. There were no guarantees of tomorrow. There would certainly be no harvest unless they worked for it themselves. However, the harvest was all theirs and no one came around each day to take a share of it.

The woman shuddered and sat down hard as she tried to think of how they had come to this. All she wanted was her husband back. She wanted her life back. She decided to begin to pray again even though the government had tried to convince everyone it was a waste of time. There was only one person to lean on now. She would ask God to come into the village and return it to sanity. Sometimes you have to wonder she thought to herself. I’ll be right back.