Asher wolfed his food down and hurried after the farmer. Tom was looking back down the path to The Ember Fields, over the course of their breakfast, the shimmer calmed down a lot and the black cloud had begun to dissipate. There was a smell lingering in the area that Asher could only liken to a fart.

“Does it always smell like this around here?” Asher asked.

“Just when we burn the fields mostly.” Tom replied and began walking in the opposite direction from the fields. “Come on, I’m gonna show ya the property line.”

Asher followed Tom back to the rows of tilled fields at the entrance when he’d originally come with the group. He took a closer look at the fields and saw small chutes of grass jutting out of the rows in the fields. He investigated further and saw that off in the distance the fields were slowly being irrigated. He watched as the water moved down one row and into the next, like some type of massive slithering snake making its way through the fields. The property in front easily covered a few acres on either side of the dirt road to the farm house. Asher found himself wondering how long it would take for the fields to fill up with water. As far as he knew and from what he saw around the property, this world didn’t have much in the way of heavy machinery so this had to have been done by hand.

“Why do you burn the fields?” Asher couldn’t stop himself from asking.

“To explain the curiousness or at least the things I find curious about crop growing I guess, then I best explain some basic farming.” Tom said as they continued walking and had begun to walk the outlines of the fields in front of the farmhouse. “In these parts we live in, what one might call, a damn jungle. Right?”

“I’d say so, yeah.” Asher replied

“See, that’s right. You’re smart...that’s the end of the front of the northwest property quarter.” Tom said as they rounded a corner and began walking back towards the direction of the house. They were now in the part of the fields where the irrigation originates and Asher could see the flooded fields up close. It was mesmerizing in its own way. “Jungles is what you’d call tropical. Do you know what tropical means?”

Asher decided to play along and let Tom get the lecture out of his system. He fauxed thinking for a moment before saying, “It means it feels like a jungle?”

“Hmm you got the spirit, yes and no. Specifics wise it means it’s hot, wet, and feels like you is always sweating. Like when you got out of a hot bath, you never really dried off or something.”

Asher simply nodded along and decided to add in “My mom called that feeling, humidity.”

Tom’s eyes got big, he snapped his finger and blurted out “That’s it! Humidity, that’s the word!” He continued on. “Anyways we live in a tropical area, just so happens that Bloodsugar loves growing in places like this. Well most plants do, if we’re bein’ honest, but that’s besides the point.” They rounded the corner and found themselves on the backside of the northwest property quarter making their way back towards the farmhouse. It was at this corner that Asher could see how the water entered into the field. It was through some type of irrigation tube that was about three inches in diameter that let in a steady flow of water. A stopper that was sturdily attached to the tube had been pulled out, most likely by Tom at some point, before Asher had ever shown up that morning.

“So even though most plants can grow here, plants from here can pretty much only grow here. The two we focus on in this farm are Bloodsugar and rice. If I’m not mistaken, almost all of the Bloodsugar production in the known world happens right here on Benetian land.” The two of them finished up the northwest section then began their outline of the northeast section of the farm. From a bird's eye view, Asher imagined the two of them walking in a huge figure eight pattern.

“Well since we can pretty much only grow Bloodsugar here, that’s what we decide to focus on. More bang for your buck that way, supply and demand they call it. It’s cheap here, but more expensive everywhere else.” Tom paused abruptly and stared at Asher, not breaking eye contact. “You following along?”

“Yes sir, supply and demand.”

“Exactly, supply and demand. Anyways we grow Bloodsugar on this farm and rotate it with rice. They both like the jungle weather, ya see, so a month or somethin’ ago..this front part of the farm was Bloodsugar and the back that you seen on fire was actually flooded out rice fields.”

They rounded the corner of the northeast quadrant and walked back towards the house. This field was also being flooded with water.

“So you need to switch out which crop is where in order to replenish the nutrients in the dirt, you know what nutrients is?” Tom said, moving his hand in a gesture that gave the feeling of going from ‘one step to the other’ as if he were laying down building blocks.

“My mom said nutrients are in food.” Asher played along.

“Damn boy, you got a smart mama.” Tom paused again and looked at Asher. “Better respect her, she sounds like a fine woman teachin’ ya all this. Right?”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Yes sir.”

“See, that’s right. Anyways, nutrients is in food. Plants need food too though, and growing some crops takes nutrients out the dirt while other crops put nutrients back into it.” Tom said as they rounded the corner on the back end of the northeast section of the property. Asher could see that this side was simply a mirror of the other.

“So ya rotate these crops so that ya don’t kill the land and make it barren where stuff can’t grow no more. That’s where most farmers mess up but they don’t listen to me. Anyways that’s crop rotatin’.” Tom finished his explanation and they walked for a few beats in silence, but now it was Asher’s turn to pause. The man stopped and looked down at the boy. “What’s wrong?”

“I asked why you burned the fields.” Asher said with genuine confusion on his face.

“Oh yeah.” Tom said with an equal look of confusion. His hand gestures of building blocks started up again. “Ya see, ya can’t go from step one to step five without doing the steps in-between. Farming is a process and ya need to learn about my theories on crop rotatin’ and nutrients before you learn about crop burnin’.”

“Okay, that makes sense, but we just went through steps one through four and I asked about five.” Asher replied back as they finished up the patrol of the front of the property, stopping at the farmhouse.

Asher saw that Mary-Sue appeared to be smiling as she saw her husband and him bicker back and forth on their way back towards the house. She was waiting outside for them and bounced baby Jim Jim on her hip as the baby played with some type of grass doll.

“Y’all want some lemonade?” She asked the bickering duo.

“Yes Ma’am!” They both replied and finished the rest of their patrol with a light jog to the house. She went inside and brought out two glasses of lemonade. Asher was a little surprised to see that the lemonade had a distinctly red tinge to it. If he compared it to something from his old world, it looked like watered down tomato juice. Maybe even strawberry-lemonade, if it was more strawberry than lemon. Asher grabbed the glass and held off on drinking until he saw Tom down his glass in one gulp, as if he were some frat guy pounding his fifth tequila shot at a party.

Asher took a sip and his taste buds were blasted with a sense of sweetness he hadn’t experienced before. It tasted like pure sugar, cranked up a notch with a punch in the mouth of citrus. The sweetness and citric acid playing off each other extremely well to deliver a devastating one-two punch of taste. His glass was empty before he knew it and already asking for a second.

“Never had Bloodsugar eh? I can see it.” Tom said casually. “The way your face was just now was the same as any traveler who comes here to try our fine Benetian cuisine.”

Mary-Sue brought out Asher’s refill and he fought the urge to chug it like he did with his first glass. He forced himself to sit and savor it, the flavor was euphoric. Something strange that Asher noticed was that the drink itself seemed to tweak his taste buds, everything else tasted slightly sweeter. Even breathing would reactivate the ‘sweet’ flavor on his tongue.

“That’s enough hon.” Tom said to his wife. “Boy ain’t never had Bloodsugar before, we got to ease him into it during his time here. Right dear?”

“That’s right, hon.” She said as she let Jim Jim take in a drop of the lemonade from her finger. The baby began smiling and laughing from the drop of liquid sugar.

“What was that?” Asher asked in awe. He could swear he felt his eyes slightly dilate.

“That’s Bloodsugar.” Tom replied.

“How is that legal?”

“It’s just sugar, really good sugar, but still simple sugar.” Tom said nonchalantly. “It does have some properties one could find interesting - mainly being the intense sugar rush.”

Asher sucked on his teeth, the richness of the sugar made his teeth feel like they were rattling. After a minute or two from when he finished his drink, the feeling of the all encompassing sweetness subsided. It felt like his taste buds had been rejuvenated, like everything was cranked to eleven when the meter should’ve stopped at ten. The only thing he could compare it to from his old world, was when there was an intense rain, and you could suddenly smell the ‘outside’ for a bit. This feeling was similar to that, except it was his sense of taste, and he could taste the burning field in the air.

“Bloodsugar’s been with us since before this place was still pure jungle.” Tom said. “People is damn near born with the taste for it around here. To make a long story short, growing it is legal here, but some countries and cities have outright banned the stuff altogether.”

They walked out the house and began making their way towards the rear of the property. The temperature was hot, but significantly less so than before.

“That’s all interesting, but -” Asher gestured towards the wave of fire. “Why do you light the fields on fire?” The boy said with a hint of frustration in his voice.

“Oh that.” Tom replied back, his expression and tone of voice becoming serious and conspiratorial. “Now that’s the interesting thing. Despite our wet environment and wet plants, for some reason the top of the cane gets real dry.”

Tom sat down and smacked the dirt for Asher to take a seat next to him. Asher joined him as they sat and watched the flames. “Shouldn’t be much longer now, I can show ya the property line in a safer fashion when there ain’t flames up our asses.”

Asher simply nodded in agreement.

“I don’t know why the top of it gets dry the way it does, but I do know it ain’t good for the crop yield.” Tom said.

“How do you know that?” Asher asked inquisitively.

“Cause I damn tested it.” Tom shot back. Asher could hear a sense of pride in the farmer’s voice. “I used to never burn the fields, but then one day I just had the idea to burn it and see what happened.”

The flames that were licking at the sky had reduced by a significant amount. The black cloud of smoke dissipated more and more as the fuel for the fire - the dry cane grass - was almost finished being consumed.

“Had to get permission from your boss, but I built a good rapport with him over the years, so he let me try it out.” Tom said and his eyes got big as he relived the moment. “The first harvest with that method was the start of Bloodsugar as we know it now, the effect was stronger, there was more of it, and everything was all around better.”

The last bits of fire were starting to flicker out of the field. Asher and Tom stood up, the man dusting himself off. “That was somethin’ like ten years ago. Before I put my inquisitive mind to the task…people were still sucking on cane stalks or boiling it in tea to get the effect from the sugar. Like I said, it’s always been a part of the culture here.”

All the flames had died out at this point and what remained were rod-like stalks of sugarcane, with a bit of char on them, jutting out of the ground. Asher could feel the heat all around them, he was surprised to even feel that the thermal energy had traveled downward. The dirt pathway that split the field in half, was warm to the touch.

“Now more farms have popped up, but ours is definitely the biggest.” Tom said and continued to talk as he walked. “Not to mention I’ve developed the method to process it and I’m always having weird ideas on what I can do with the stuff.”

Tom let out a big yawn as he began to stretch. “Yup, I guess you could call me Benetia’s sugar daddy.” The farmer said with a big grin.

“Uh, Tom?” Asher asked.

“Yup?”

“All I asked was why you burned the fields.”