The Story of an Onion

Once upon a time there was an onion.

He was an ordinary red onion. His life started like so many others. He and all his onion friends started their life in a field in El Centro, CA.

One day, as he was basking in the sun, a man in a tractor came and before he knew what was happening, his long leaves had been chopped off, along with all the others.

At first he was very upset, but after a while he got over it, and went back to basking in the sun.

One morning, he and his friends were just getting started in their sun bathing, when suddenly there was a rumble and the ground started to shake. This time it wasn't just a tractor. There were other large wheeled things coming with it.

They stopped at the edge of the field and waited there for a long time, keeping the onions...and themselves impatient to see what would happen next.

Finally, one of the trucks drove out into the field to meet the tractor. It was a massacre! The ground shook, heavy steel burrowed under he and his friends. The little onion's fright was so severe that he fainted, and the world went black.

After a few moments the onion regained consciousness. Slowly he opened his eyes and looked around. But he was all alone. His friends were gone. He'd been left behind.

Across the field, he could see the truck and the tractor stopped. They stayed there a long time. He wondered if they were coming back to get him. From a distance he could hear the men talking. He heard phrases like, "dead battery," "hydraulic hose," "won't start." The little onion realized that they wouldn't be coming after him any time soon. When the engine on the tractor started again, the men and their machines continued down the rows ahead of them.

The little onion looked out across the field he had called home all his life. It was complete and utter devastation.

But just as he was beginning to feel hopelessly lost without his friends for company, he looked closer. All around him, there were other's that had been left behind. He wasn't alone after all. They had apparently been judged too small by the big machine the tractor pulled, and not worthy of anything, even though they were as big as a small apple or bigger. The onions weren't sure if they were grateful to be left behind, or insulted to be considered inferior and left as waste.

As they lay there contemplating their fates, whirlwinds came through the field clearing away the red leaves of onion skins that littered the ground, filling the air with a shimmering curtain of red dancing onion skins.

In the distance, another farmer burned his wheat field to clear it,...

flowers bloomed at the edge of the field,..

and the day went on for the rest of the onions in the field across the road, basking in the sun, and ripening in the 110 degree heat of Southern California.

The End