I grew up in a family of peasants, and it was there that I saw

Host: The wind swept over the open plains, carrying the scent of dry earth and fading sunlight. The sky above was painted with streaks of amber and gray, as if the day itself were being torn between memory and forgetting. A lonely barn stood at the edge of a withered wheat field, its roof rusted, its walls bowed inward like a man tired of standing too long.

Inside, Jack leaned against a wooden beam, a cigarette burning slow between his fingers. Jeeny stood by the open door, the wind lifting strands of her hair, her eyes fixed on the field beyond — the same field where the soil had turned to dust and the earth had begun to forget its own promise.

Jeeny: “Mikhail Gorbachev once said, ‘I grew up in a family of peasants, and it was there that I saw the way that, for example, our wheat fields suffered as a result of dust storms, water erosion and wind erosion; I saw the effect of that on life — on human life.’”

Jack: “Yeah, well, that’s what happens when the land fights back. You take too much from it, it takes itself away.”

Host: The sun sank lower, throwing long shadows across the floorboards. Dust floated in the light, each grain turning like a memory caught midair.

Jeeny: “It’s more than just land, Jack. He wasn’t talking about wheat — he was talking about people. When the earth breaks, so do we.”

Jack: “You’re romanticizing it. The soil doesn’t care about us. It’s chemistry, not conscience. Water erodes rock, wind moves sand. We just happen to live on top of it.”

Jeeny: “But that’s the tragedy — we live on it, not with it. The peasants Gorbachev grew up with, they understood that the soil was their blood. When the dust rose, it wasn’t just fields dying — it was families, dreams, futures.”

Jack: “And still, no amount of love stops a drought. You can whisper to the wind all you want, it won’t bring rain.”

Host: Jeeny turned, her eyes catching the last light of the sunset, a soft fire burning there — not anger, but grief.

Jeeny: “No, but it might make you plant again after it’s over. That’s what faith looks like on a farm — not waiting for miracles, but sowing into barrenness because you still believe in life.”

Jack: “Faith doesn’t fill the stomach, Jeeny. Neither does poetry. It’s water that does that — and water doesn’t care what you believe.”

Jeeny: “And yet people keep believing. They keep planting. Even in the Dust Bowl, when the sky turned black, when the earth itself seemed to curse them, they stayed. They didn’t stay because of science. They stayed because of love — for the land, for each other, for the idea that tomorrow might be better.”

Host: The wind outside rose, whistling through the cracks of the barn, shaking a few loose boards. Jack watched her, his expression unreadable — half defiance, half memory.

Jack: “You sound like my father. He used to talk to the ground like it was listening. When the crops failed, he’d kneel in the dirt and say, ‘We’ll do better next time.’ But it wasn’t the land’s fault, Jeeny. It was ours. We overworked it, ignored the signs. That’s not tragedy — that’s consequence.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. That’s what Gorbachev saw too — that when we harm the earth, we harm ourselves. His family’s fields died from erosion, and he learned that you can’t separate human life from the soil it stands on. The land remembers everything we do to it.”

Jack: “And still forgets us when we’re gone. Nature doesn’t mourn, Jeeny.”

Jeeny: “Maybe not. But we should.”

Host: Her words hung in the air, trembling like the last stalk of wheat before harvest. A moment passed — the kind that stretches like the horizon, where neither side moves because both are right in different ways.

Jack: “You think mourning the earth will fix it?”

Jeeny: “No. But maybe it will humble us. Maybe that’s the beginning of healing.”

Jack: “Healing’s a luxury, not a law. People don’t stop to heal — they survive.”

Jeeny: “Survival without reverence turns into destruction. Look around, Jack. The storms, the fires, the floods — it’s the same story Gorbachev told, just rewritten on a bigger stage. We didn’t listen to the land then, and now it’s shouting.”

Host: The barn doors creaked as another gust pushed through, scattering straw and dust. Jack stubbed his cigarette into the dirt, his face lit for an instant by the ember’s glow, then swallowed by shadow again.

Jack: “You talk like the earth is God.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it is. Or maybe God just hides there — in the rhythm of planting, in the patience of decay, in the miracle of something growing again after being broken.”

Jack: “That’s poetic. But the land doesn’t forgive, Jeeny. Once it’s stripped, it’s gone. You can’t pray a field back to life.”

Jeeny: “But you can love it back. That’s what replanting is. That’s what conservation is. Gorbachev saw his fields die — and from that, he learned responsibility. That’s why he cared about reform, about change. He knew what it looked like when a system collapses from greed and neglect.”

Host: The wind stilled suddenly, leaving only the sound of the floorboards creaking under their weight. The sun had fully set, leaving behind a pale wash of violet and ash.

Jack: “Maybe you’re right. Maybe erosion isn’t just about soil. Maybe it’s about people. When we stop caring, when we exploit everything — the land, each other — we start to crumble too.”

Jeeny: “Yes. The dust storms outside are only the reflection of the ones inside us.”

Host: Jack walked toward the door, his boots crunching on gravel. He stopped, looking out across the field, where the moonlight revealed faint lines of new shoots — small, fragile, alive.

Jack: “Someone’s planted again.”

Jeeny: “Someone always does.”

Host: She joined him at the door, their breath mingling in the cold air. Together they watched the field, where the earth, though scarred, still held the promise of return.

Jeeny: “That’s the lesson he carried from those fields — that human life and the land are the same story. Both can be worn down, both can be renewed. We are what we tend.”

Jack: “Then maybe we’ve still got a chance.”

Jeeny: “If we remember to kneel before we take.”

Host: The wind returned — gentler now — and the wheat stalks that remained bent but did not break. Above them, the moonlight spread across the plain, silvering every scar until even the ruins looked like hope.

And there, in the stillness, where dust and silence met, two voices faded into one — the sound of humility, the quiet prayer of a species remembering where it came from.