The Age of Miracles

21

Cynodon dactylon, also known as Bermuda grass, the main variety of which is Arizona common: a hardy breed of grass, resistant to heat and drought and thus popular at one time for lawns and golf courses throughout the southwestern United States. But Cynodon dactylon requires abundant sunshine. It cannot thrive in shade or endure prolonged periods of darkness. And thus, when the days grew beyond fifty hours, thousands of yards, including ours and seven others on the street, began to suffer. The grass thinned, browned, and then died.

Mr. Valencia replaced his lawn with lava rocks. I woke one morning to a great clattering of stones as two workers poured them into the shallow bed where the grass once lived. Blankets of artificial turf soon landed in front of some houses. Giant sunlamps sprouted in the yards of others.

While my parents debated what to do about our yard, the whole lawn went bald. The dirt turned to mud. Earthworms wiggled to the surface, some lighting out for better territory only to crisp on the cement of our driveway, baked by the sun, then flattened by the tires of our cars.

Our honeysuckle withered, too. The bougainvillea quit producing flowers.

All across America, giant greenhouses were swallowing up the open-air fields of our farms. Acres and acres were put under glass. Thousands of sodium lamps were giving light to our tomato plants and our orange trees, our strawberries and our potatoes and our corn.

“The developing countries are going to be the hardest hit,” said the head of the Red Cross on one of the morning shows. Famines were predicted for Africa and parts of Asia. “These countries simply lack the financial resources to adapt.”

Even for us, the solutions were temporary. Industrial farms were guzzling up electricity at an impossible rate. The twenty thousand lights that hung from the ceiling of just one greenhouse could eat up in half an hour as much power as most families used in a whole year. Grazing pastures quickly became too expensive to maintain—beef would soon become a delicacy.

“We need to be moving in the exact opposite direction,” said the head of a large environmental group interviewed on the nightly news. “We need to be reducing, not prolonging, our dependence on crops that require so much light.”

Bananas and other tropical fruits had already vanished from the grocery stores. Bananas! How strange a word can sound when you haven’t heard it said aloud in ages.

Scientists raced for a cure. There was hope in genetic engineering. There was talk of a miracle rice. Some researchers turned their attention to the mossy floors of rain forests and the sunless depths of the oceans, where certain plants had long survived on very little light; scientists hoped to splice the genes of these hardy species with those of the world’s food supply.

We were nervous sometimes, other times not. Anxiety rolled over us in waves. The national mood was contagious and quick to change. Weeks sometimes passed in relative calm. But any bit of bad news provoked runs on canned goods and bottled water. My mother’s collection of emergency supplies continued to grow. I’d find candles stuffed in the coat closet, boxes of canned tuna in the garage. Fifty jars of peanut butter stood in rows beneath my parents’ bed.

Still the slowing went on and on. The days stretched. One by one, the minutes poured in—and even a trickle, as we have come to understand, can eventually add up to a flood.