The English walnut comes in a husk so thick and vile we are forced to lie to the children. We tell them that the burning they feel as they harvest the nuts will speed their arrival to someplace a great deal nicer than here. We are primitive, our agriculture is entirely passive, the climate here is aggressive, and our soil is like a locked ward at Atuscadero. When there are hoards of little gridders dancing everywhere, and all the grown ups are dead or in jail, the production of food can become Dickensian. We are there.
The English walnut grows wild here, in abundance, enough to feed most of us. They are also scarce enough to impose famine on weaker community activists, such as live a block from here. The children must work quickly. We give them disposable rubber gloves and yell, "get the fuck out there and fill these fucking crinkled grocery bags. We'll die of starvation if you fuck this up."
Days of hard labor follow the gathering portion of our bifurcated life's ethic. We need all the nuts there are to stay healthy. Few people over the age of eight believe our bullshit story about the afterlife. It reduces the work force. Getting the kids to hammer the meat out of the wrappings has required us to install wide screen televisions. We tell them that they will get double rations in the next world if they get all eighty tons of walnuts processed before we all have to grab a bat and chase off invading suburban nomads. It is hard to find food, and rigorous to keep it away from everyone else. For this reason and many more, we are polygamous. Though we are not the world's brightest people, we don't let facts fuck us over.
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