The Meatfields: Chapter Two: The Previous Night

The Previous Night:
"I've got to do this. I've got to do this-" convincing me was harder than convincing herself.
"Or what? Or Die? You're not going to die, Sarah." God, she pissed me off. "You are going to wake up tomorrow morning regardless of whether or not you wring out every second of tonight's potential productivity. Killing yourself like this makes no difference. No one can blame you if you can't pay everything all the time on time- and you are not failing anyone by not being perfect." I was getting angry. "You don't have to... you don't have- never mind." I threw my arms up in defeat. Nothing I could say or do could peel her sallow face from the blue glare of the screen, stop the maddening slide, click, slide, click of the mouse. She was a closed door to an empty house and my words were just echoes lost in it.
Stepping outside I lit up a cigarette, but hunger was still sitting in the pit of my stomach, threatening to become nausea. The cigarette didn't help. Suddenly I despised myself. I despised everything about me: the way I looked in the reflection of the screen door window, where I lived, the fake little college-girl paradise I lived in, the way I hated everything and everyone I saw before I actually made my mind up, the way I hated Sarah for trying to better herself, the way I smoked and smoked even when I hated the taste.
It was three in the morning and I had been here for a month.
Through the screen door I could see Sarah falling asleep where she sat, her hair up in a towel, a half-burnt cigarette releasing tiny nail scratches of smoke through the air. Here face looked dried up, like her eyes were two punching points - all puffy and tender.

What Sarah Wrote:
I'm having a hard time writing. When this happens I usually do exactly this: write about how hard of a time writing I am having. I suppose that I should clarify my initial statement a bit, both for the sake of honesty as well as my own personal therapy: I'm having a hard time writing my stories.
1. I'm having a hard time writing.
2. I'm having a hard time writing my stories.
3. I'm having a hard time writing my stories down.
They grow too fast. They start simple and small and then they balloon out and connect with other stories and they're all up there, in my head... I just haven't the time or energy to get them out. That last part is what I tell myself. I've a sneaking suspicion that I've been copping out, so here I go. I'm going to try and write one down. Wish me luck.

The Meatfields, Chapter One
I first went to work in the Meatfields when I was 12. By some dumb luck I had been opted later than most kids, so I didn't have to do any of the separating like my younger brother. I still would've liked to be a sower, but you couldn't do that until you were 16.
It was Charlie, a 5th Tier, who taught me how to do it:
"Allright, lissen' up." He'd say, "There are two things to consider when removing a stalk from the ground- its bone and its vessel. If you crack it right", with a swift jerk he kicked the nearest stalk as an example "The bone'll disconnect itself clean, and the topmost section will suck itself into the stalk. This is the work of the tendons- it's designed to do this, people." He sounded like he was very pleased to be able to talk this way. "You will know that it is a clean break because you will feel it- don't worry, it will take some time and practice, but you'll get the hang of it."
But that part was easy, the trick wasn't to snap the bone clean, it was to pinch the seed-artery off at the base the instant you snipped the stalk off- as he went on to explain: "If you don't, you are guaranteed to get a face full of Meatstalk juice."
The "newbie fields" were easy to spot from the walls of the compound- jets of red sprayed up at regular intervals as the new Reaper's learned their task. We would return, the white of our work jumpers now a bright crimson, not much unlike the color of our cheeks as the older kids would holler and laugh.