The Plow — March, 26th

Andréi had spent the biggest part of the month trying to find a way through the military checkpoints littered around the cylinder with his fixer, with a constant lack of luck — quite unusual for him.

They barely avoided a patrol during a night attempt near Mezőberény on the 4th of March, then he had to spend his entire cigarette stash to get rid of another brigade north of Mezőtúr, the morning of the 11th. Finally, they really thought they had succeeded, hidden in a barn in Rákóczifalva, before realizing having taken the wrong turn in the dark, and actually being in another village, entirely outside of the protected zone.

Still, he had been on the ground for around 6 weeks now, and his regular papers published in the Guardian had made him an internationally known figure. He was now frequently invited to remote interviews, live on national networks. He would install his makeshift studio somewhere in the wild, his laptop on a rock or fence, connected to the sat-phone, and would start streaming the latest on CNN or the BBC, along with his commentary, in front of millions of viewers. The recurrent sunny, rural backgrounds and his energetic, almost optimistic tone had soon earned him the nickname of “Field-Andy”.

Of course, this global reputation also had its local counterpart, and he was now almost always recognized by the soldiers of civilians he approached. And this fame had some critical downsides too. Evidently, orders had come from the brass, and although the military patrols he stumbled upon weren’t trying to deport him back to Budapest like most journalists, he was also being expertly kept away from the action, preventing any kind of report on the potential exactions committed during the evacuations. More so, the soldiers had made a contest of who would catch and repel him the soonest.

Between his fixer, now out of his known grounds, him being on a first-name basis with most of the area’s lieutenants, and his stroke of misfortune, Andréi Wales-Tushinski was stuck, and getting quite frustrated about it.

And finally, on the morning of the 20th, while he was finishing a duplex with a German TV channel, a local came up to him. The man was called Botond. “Just Botond”, as he said when asked for more. He was an affable, bearded Hungarian, riding a bland, anonymous grey truck. He told Andréi he knew who he was and offered his help to “get to the zone”, without seemingly asking for anything in return. His plan was deceptively simple. Andréi would hide in his van, and the Hungarian would drive him to a village some distance to the west, right on the Cylinder’s path, and soon to be in the exclusion zone.

Andréi pondered how would they not be caught at the checkpoints like in the past days, but he quickly gathered that it wasn’t the first time that this man transported illegal payload around here. For lack of any other plan, really, he opted to trust him and said his goodbyes to the trusty Romanian fixer he had been with all this time.

— “Get in there, journo”, said Botond. Andréi’s last part of doubt about the man’s smuggling abilities disappeared when he had to crawl inside the small hidden space between the van’s cabin and trunk, behind the gas tank.

They had then started driving towards their destination. The more the van was getting close to the cylinder, the more its progression was hampered by the increasingly numerous cars, trucks, buses and army vehicles full of the region’s population fleeing the upcoming disaster.

Inevitably, they were stopped several times at checkpoints. From what the journalist could hear from his minuscule hideout, Botond’s technique was efficient: to soldiers surprised to see someone trying to get to the forbidden zone instead of away from it, he would invent a sob story about his cousin’s nephew in need of help, lament about the fate of a kid who “looks just like you”, digress on being both proud Hungarian, and occasionally greased the whole thing with a few thousand Forints. Out of zeal more than suspicion, some of them would open up the back of the van for inspection, but no one pushed it any further. There wasn’t any time for it anyway.

And so it was that after 8 hours of excruciating travel, Andréi was finally signaled that it was safe to get out of his cage. It was now night, and they were in a courtyard, between a warehouse and a small homestead, joined by a cemented wall.

Andréi stretched for a while. Besides an inevitable back pain after such a hard journey, he felt like he was… shaking, somehow. But the evening was warm, and he didn’t felt feverish.

— Are you hungry, journo? Said the Hungarian. He was installed on a log, near the wall, and was calmly opening a large canteen of hot soup, a cigarette in his hand.

— Starving. Where are we?

— Abony.

The journalist took his gear out and checked the town’s position on the map. They were 70 kilometers east of Budapest, and precisely on the Plow’s path. Finally, he made it.

He quickly did some head maths. Yes, the Plow would be here sometime tomorrow. In truth, it should be quite close already, less than a few miles away. Reaching the large courtyard’s gate, he peeked outside. The place was in a small, unlit street, fading left and right into the night. Above, the overcast night was dark and featureless. There was nothing to be seen — and he was still shaking.

Andréi went back to his unexpected companion and watched him silently as he poured red, smoking goulash in two metal bowls. It was a rather basic meal, probably with mutton, potatoes, and the inescapable ton of paprika. Nevertheless, it seemed fine, despite the strange undulation of its surface — Oh, but of course. How could he have not realized? Andréi wasn’t shaking: the ground was.

— “Yeah, it shakes, journo”, the Hungarian said, seeing the look on his face. “And you ain’t seen nothing yet, it gets crazy when you’re real close. Buildings collapse, and all. Now eat.”

He had stated that plainly, between two sips, as if it was just a common fact of life, unfazed by the phenomenon. What an odd man, Andréi thought.

They ate silently, amidst the faint tremors. Then, the Hungarian stood up, burped, and started gathering his stuff.

— Ok, I will go now, he declared.

— What?

— What what? You wanted to come here, you’re here now. I’m not going to sit there and be pretty while you film your things. Besides, as I said it’s gonna get dangerous here. So I will go now.

— But how am I going to get out of here?

— Oh, yeah. There’s a car in the garage, he said pointing a metal door in front of them. “The keys are under the seat. You can sleep in the house, also. And I think the water is still running, so take a shower if you want to. Everything’s gonna be destroyed anyway, so don’t bother flushing the toilets, journo, ha ha”, he laughed.

On that, he closed his bag, climbed on his van, and made a U-turn to exit the courtyard. As he was about to leave, Andréi called:

— Hey Botond! Thanks for everything.

— No sweat, he said, still rolling out of the gate.

— Wait! Why did you do that for me?

— I was bored.

— Come on, Botond, really?

The Hungarian stopped for a moment and peeked his head out of the truck window.

— Ah well. You see this place, journo? I’ve lived here for thirty years. Tomorrow, it will all be gone. The yard, the house, the city, the region, everything. It’s the same for the neighbors, the same for everyone here. You don’t live here. This big black thing of yours, it’s just something to report, right? When this is all finished you’ll get back to your home, your family or something. But we won’t. We won’t have nowhere to come back to. Instead of my country, here, there will just be a… a trench. That Plow, it doesn’t kill us. It kills our ancestors. Our memory of them. It erases our culture, it flattens our history, and there won’t be a single rock to remember where we come from. That’s what you should talk about, Andréi.

As he heard his real name used, Andréi saw what unspeakable sadness was hiding behind the man’s placid face.

— I… I had to come here one last time, see? Before it’s nothing. You gave me a reason. Good luck, journo.

And on those words, he drove off, without waiting for an answer. Not sure what to make of the whole thing, Andréi just sat there, alone in the yard. The surrounding city was empty. Birds, insects, critters, just like humans, had long deserted the place, leaving complete silence, save from the Plow’s ominous rumbling.

One way or another, he had fallen asleep, in the house’s sofa, exhausted by the previous day — in spite of the intensifying shakes throughout the night.

He was jolted awake by a plate smashing on the tiled floor. It was largely past dawn, almost midday, and the tremors had now become a serious earthquake. The kitchenware was loudly clinking, glasses were falling from the cupboards, the furniture itself was wobbling. Chips dislodging from the ceiling’s paint showed that the whole house was weakening.

It wasn’t the first time Andréi was awoken in the middle of a crisis situation. His reflexes were sharp, his instincts refined by years of experience. Even before being fully conscious, his mind had already suggested a course of actions: first, get out of the immediate danger by leaving the unstable structure. Don’t forget the vest, gear, and supplies. Then, start the camera, go to the street, filming the object, film surroundings, maybe a bit of commentary. After that, get the car, leave the area going west, maybe shoot additional footage on the way. Good, let’s go.

And then his shiny plan shattered, just as he got outside.

It turns out, Andréi had prepared himself for the moment when he would finally face the object. It would be massive, it would fill half the sky, like an impossible, giant wall. He had thought about it countless times during this last month. But he had never anticipated ending below it.

Now there he was. So close to the Cylinder’s contact point — less than a mile — that most of its mass was above his head. Over him, the gigantic, gigantic peaks that filled the object’s surface were descending on him, as a dark sky falling on the world. A few blocks away, these hanging towers were entering the world, crushing the buildings like sandcastles, blasting rocks and debris over the city, in a formidable thunder.

That is how Andréi Wales-Tushinski, the renowned war reporter, hardened by the coverage of a hundred catastrophes, a thousand wars, just stood there, stupidly, his mouth open, without shooting a single image. That time, he was actually shaking.

After a time, though, he finally got back to reality and realized how dire his situation was. Forget the images, he thought, let’s get out of here. He dashed to the dangerously swaying warehouse where Botond’s car was and jumped in the vehicle. Frantically, he searched for the keys, his mind racing: “Overhead? Glovebox? What the fuck did he tell me? Breathe, Andy… Under the seat!” His fingers felt the distinctive shape. “That’s it”. He grabbed them, shoved them in the slot, and turned. The engine coughed, sputtered, and stalled.

— Fuck.

He tried again, kicking the gas pedal forcefully. And again, the engine screeched, fizzled, and died down.

— Fuck, fuck! Start, you fucking trash!

As his escape vehicle, Andréi was getting overwhelmed by panic. Dumbly, he was insisting, drowning the engine a bit more each time. Evidently, it would not start now. A metal beam fell from the roof, smashing the windshield, sent shreds of glass and metal on his face, ending his futile attempts. He escaped the car, leaving his supplies behind, and slipped down to the warehouse floor. He crawled towards the exit, disoriented and almost blind, while bigger and bigger dislocated metal panels rained around him. Still, he had managed to reach the door, half of his body out, when a massive steel tube ripped from the structure fell on his legs, crushing his bones.

He screamed in pain. The whole facade was tilting now, just above him. It was collapsing. That was that. He was dead.

And somehow, barely conscious but full of adrenaline, he had a convulsion. Gripping the ground with his hands, he pulled himself outside, inch by inch. Trailing his mangled legs behind his body, shredding his fingernails on the gravel, he desperately saved his life, just in time to see the whole structure turn back to rubble in a deafening racket.

On the 21st of March 2020, at 1:26 PM, Andréi Wales-Tushinski, 44 years old Britannic reporter, was in Abony, Hungaria, in the yard of a small property regularly used as a storage space by local traffickers. Both his legs were broken, his sight was impaired, and he had lost a lot of blood. 54 minutes later, at 2:20 PM, the Plow’s contact point would reach his position, although flying debris or crevices created by the major quakes could render the perimeter unsurvivable before that.

The journalist knew that his situation was critical, and his chances of survival low. The Plow was, as commonly known, quite slow, moving at a speed of only 0.2 kilometer per hour. Even crawling, he could probably outpace it. But in order to get to safety, he also had to exit its future trajectory, which would be the hardest part considering he was almost at the center of its width. In a nutshell, if Andréi intended not to die on this Saturday, he would have to travel about 6 or 7 kilometers in a dozen hours, without losing his bearing, crawling on his belly in spite of his pain, and with no water of food.

Lying on the ground, the reporter was understandably desperate about his odds when, somehow, his hand touched the camera, miraculously still attached to its strap. It still worked. Andréi smiled, then downright laughed. At that point, he didn’t know if he would actually live. But at least he was sure of one thing: he would have his Pulitzer.

He started shooting.

The plow appeared like that, somewhere in eastern Europe. Since then, it slowly rolls west, crushing everything on its path. What is it? Why is it there?

Have you photographed, filmed, drawn the Plow? Have you witnessed, observed, heard something about it? Send your data and ask your questions at theplowinstitute@gmail.com

If you are just getting there, it might be easier to jump back to the beginning. You will also find all entries here.

The Plow’s trajectory is also being monitored on Twitter and Facebook.

Finally, this work is written by a non-native English speaker. If you see something weird about the grammar or vocabulary, do mention it via email or messaging.