The Field

The Millennium Field was donated to the Underbelly for that very occasion and a thousand assorted trees were abandoned randomly around its awkward course. No one can place the field in their minds before it was named and who donated it also remains foggy. The topography of the field has quickly jumped from toddler to rowdy teenager in a few short years and occasionally the invisible council workers carve at its edges with chainsaws, usually in the middle of the night. Adolescent hawthorns and their cluster bombs of red berries stand out like a gang ginger kids terrorizing the lanky, well to do silver birches that will eventually dwarf them and return the favour twofold. The field can be the loveliest place in the entire valley but at times it can just as well reek of darkness and bedevilment. In the evenings a curious light descends like a hood that threatens to strangle the blossoms at birth. The lush grass between the trees and all the tiny leaves take on an unnatural fluorescent hue.

In the evening, the field fills with dogs and their assorted owners from all over the Underbelly hence my mid-morning visits to avoid the canine rush hour to Zac's vexation I am sure. In the central plain of the field above the valley with Zac at my feet, we watch a huge swath of rain blow down from the hills towards the Underbelly. It slashes me across the face like razor and I feel strangely chastised.

As my friends will tell you, I'm no soil specialist; the closest I get is stooping low for magics come October. If you've ever wondered why the earth, or the road smells the way it does when it rains after a long dry spell, there is a scientific reason. Here's the science: 'That smell' is given off by actinomycetes bacteria. These bacteria grow in dank, warm earth before warmer weather dries out the soil, which then blows around as dust. During a dry spell, actinomycetes produce spores that are released on contact with moisture. Rain smacking the ground kicks up an aerosol of water and soil and you breathe in fine particles of soil containing the bacteria. We now know that we are part of this earth more than ever. I've never really understood how all this is supposed to work on roads and pavements since you don't imagine them to covered in bacteria other than the road kill variety. Before my research begins to show, I'll just say that actinomycetes are a source of many antibiotics, which I guess is why standing out in the rain is good for you. Bad science makes me happy.

I look down at the dog at my feet in the black in the white fur coat and grab him by the collar before he can run off. As I suspected there is something wrapped around it. A piece of foil undoubtedly placed there by Trudie the other evening. I unfurl it and hold it up to the light. It has the consistency of a chewing gum wrapper and I pocket it. Zac barks to signal that he is getting wetter by the second and wants to be somewhere else. I pocket the silver foil ring and head back out the field towards the house.