Chapter 2 a fable of tomorrow

Once upon a time there was a town in the middle of America where all living things seemed to live in harmony with their surroundings.The town sits in the middle of a checkerboard arrangement of thriving farms, surrounded by fields of crops and orchards on hills.In spring, flowers bloom like white clouds on the green fields; in autumn, through the screen of pine forests, oaks, maples and birches flash with colorful light like flames, foxes call on the hills, and deer pass silently. A field shrouded in autumn morning mist. Laurel, viburnum and alder trees along the trails, as well as giant ferns and wildflowers, delight the traveler most of the year.Even in winter the roadsides are beautiful places where countless birds come to peck at the berries and ears of hay that show above the snow.The country is in fact becoming famous for its birdlife, and people travel long distances to see migratory birds as they flock here throughout spring and autumn.Others came to fish the streams, which flowed clean and cool from the hills and formed shaded ponds where trout lived.The field has always been like this until one day many years ago, when the first residents came here to build houses, dig wells and storehouses, the situation changed.

Since then, a strange shadow has covered the area and everything has changed.Some ominous omen befell the village: mysterious diseases struck flocks of chickens; cattle and sheep fell ill and died.There are ghosts of death everywhere.Farmers tell of their family's sickness.Doctors in the city, too, were increasingly bewildered by new diseases appearing among their patients.There have been some sudden, unexplained deaths not only in adults but also in children who, while playing, suddenly collapsed and died within hours. A strange silence fell over the place.For example, where are the birds?Many people talk about them, feeling confused and disturbed.The place where the birds forage at the back of the garden is deserted.The few birds that could be seen in some places were also dying. They trembled so badly that they could not fly.This is a silent spring.Here the mornings had been filled with the chorus of crows, thrushes, doves, jays, wrens, and other birdsong; but now all sound was gone, and only silence fell over the fields, woods, and moors.

The fallen hens on the farm were brooding, but no chicks were hatching.Farmers complained that they could no longer raise pigs—newborn piglets were tiny, and sick piglets lived only a few days.The apple trees were about to bloom, but there were no bees buzzing in the bushes, so the apple blossoms were not pollinated and there would be no fruit. What had once been such an inviting path was now lined with burnt, dead vegetation as if it had been burned by a fire.These places abandoned by life are also silent.Even the creek has lost its life; fishermen no longer visit it because all the fish are dead.

In the rain pipes under the edge of the roof, between the roof tiles, a white powder is still showing a little stain.Weeks earlier, the white powder had fallen like snowflakes onto rooftops, lawns, fields and creeks. It is not magic, nor the activities of the enemy, that prevents life from being brought back to life in this damaged world, it is people themselves who victimize themselves. The aforementioned town is a fiction, but thousands of such towns can easily be found in the United States and elsewhere in the world.I know of no village that has experienced all the miseries I have described; but each of these has actually occurred somewhere, and indeed many villages have suffered a great deal of misfortune.In the midst of people's neglect, a hideous specter has come upon us, an imagined tragedy that could easily become a living reality that we will all know.

What has silenced the sounds of spring in countless towns across America?This book attempts to answer.