Alabama, 1932 The earth is starting to sink beneath their feet.? Lara tries to tell Otto, but he wont listen. Weve taken too much out of the earth, she says, with our mines, digging down deep and then turning what we find into Ford cars, into trains and railway ties, into big buildings, rifles and bullets. Weve taken all the weight out of the inside of the earth and put it on top, and its pressing down on the soil. The earth is getting soggier, sinking and sinking. I swear Im walking an inch deeper than I was yesterday, you dont feel it, Otto?No, he doesnt feel it, he thinks shes a freak, he says those words, fucked up freak. He hits her, but she doesnt fall; she blinks and shakes her head, but she stays standing. He stands in front of the open door of the boxcar, close to the swamps tumbling by. Lara sees dead swamp trees through the open door, their gnarled fingers reaching out against a gray sky. She knows these trees werent always ruined. She imagines them with green leaves, rooted in dark, rich soil. Now they are bare and lifeless, their roots drowned in what once nourished them.