Driving down 32, a country road with old people in Buicks driving the speed limit, the corn fields had been raped to the dirt and lay lifeless and covered in frost. Winter’s gray hurt my eyes, but I forgot my sunglasses that day. The day was dead brown earth layered upon bright gray light layered upon sickly, stretching dormant trees.

Life was absent that day, except for voices of Robert Segal and Michele Norris on the radio.

Iraq was still there, they said, and so was Iran. Afghanistan wasn’t mentioned. I continued to listen, driving through the listless Indiana farmlands that lay naked that January day. Then, I turned my head to the right: Three stories tall, a half-block wide, occupying the field was a blue oval…shape.

I pulled over. Got out of my Beetle. Looked up. Black birds perched on top. It blocked the breeze.

I looked up and down at the giant blue…ornament. Indents and grooves textured its surface, and at the end, the tips blurted out. It was, wasn’t it? I thought to myself. A blue lemon.