The stove was a cast iron thing, six feet old, and it carried the traces of every meal the Baker family had cooked in the ten years they had lived on this Oklahoma land, traces that were not visible but were physical, microscopic scratches in the enamel that recorded the position of every pot and pan and every hand that had placed a pot or pan on every burner, traces that accumulated the way guilt accumulates, the way a life accumulates decisions, the way a piece of iron accumulates the heat of every fire built inside it, the way the Baker family had accumulated ten years of decisions that had led them to this moment in 1933 when the dust was coming and the land was dying and the objects they owned were the only records of their existence because paper records had blown away or been sold or been lost in the various displacements that had defined their lives. The stove was the first object. It stood in the kitchen of a house that was shrinking, not physically but functionally, the way a house shrinks when the land around it dies, the way a room shrinks when the family inside it gets smaller, the way the Baker family was getting smaller, one member at a time, the way the dust was taking them one by one, the way the objects they owned were the only thing that remained constant, the only records of a life that was disappearing, the way a piece of cast iron remembers every fire it has held the way a family remembers every decision it has made. The first trace on the stove was a burn mark on the second burner from the left, caused by James Baker in 1928 when he had set a pot of beans too close to the edge and the flame had licked up and scorched the enamel, the burn mark was shaped like a small map of Oklahoma and it remained ten years later and it recorded the day James had decided to stay on this land when the drought had started and when every sensible person had left and James had looked at his father and his father had looked at him and the father had said your grandfather bought this land and your grandfather worked it and your father is working it and you will work it and the will to stay was transmitted from father to son the way a burn mark is transmitted from fire to iron, the way a decision is transmitted from parent to child the way a trace is transmitted from action to object and the burn mark remained and it was the first trace of the first decision, the decision to stay, the decision that would determine everything that followed, the way a single scratch in enamel records a single moment of heat and the burn mark recorded a single moment of James Baker choosing to stay. The second object was a wooden chair, rough-hewn, one leg shorter than the others and propped up with a brick, and the chair carried the traces of every body that had sat in it, the way a seat record the shape of a body over time the way a path records the feet that have walked it the way a life records the choices that have shaped it, and the chair recorded Martha Baker sitting in it for eleven years, Martha who had come to this land as a twenty-year-old bride and had become a thirty-one-year-old woman with calloused hands and a tired back and a daughter named Rose who was nine years old and a son named Willie who was six years old and the chair recorded the weight of Martha's body every morning while she cooked, every evening while she mended clothes, every night while she sat in the dark and listened to the wind carry dust against the windows, the way an object records the presence of the people who use it, the way a chair records the bodies that sit in it, the way a life records the people who inhabit it, the way the chair recorded Martha and her tired back and her calloused hands and her daughter and her son and her husband who came home every evening and sat in the chair and did not speak and the silence was a trace too, a trace of unspoken decisions, the decision to stay when leaving would have been easier, the decision to work land that was dying, the decision to feed a family on soil that was blowing away, the decision to stay recorded in the wear patterns on the seat, the wear patterns were deepest in the center where Martha had sat for eleven years, deepest at the back where James had sat for ten, shallowest at the edges where Willie had sat occasionally when he was small and the shallow edges were the trace of childhood, the trace of a time before the dust and before the decisions and before the staying and the working and the dying, the trace of a time when the chair held a boy who did not yet know that staying was a decision and that decisions leave traces and that traces accumulate on objects and on people and on land until the objects and the people and the land are nothing but traces, records of decisions made by people who made them thinking they were choices when they were really just the accumulation of previous decisions, the way the chair was nothing but traces of previous sittings and the stove was nothing but traces of previous fires and the land was nothing but traces of previous rains that had stopped coming and the family was nothing but traces of previous decisions that had led them to stay. The third object was a tin cup, dented on one side, the dent caused by Willie dropping it in 1931 when he was four years old and the cup fell from the table and hit the floor and the dent appeared and the dent remained and it recorded the moment Willie had dropped the cup and the moment had recorded itself in the metal and the metal had carried the record for two years and would carry it for the rest of the cup's life, the way a child's accident records itself in an object and the object carries the record the way a parent carries the record of a child's accident in memory and memory is also a kind of object, a thing that carries traces, the way Martha carried the trace of Willie's dropped cup in her mind every time she saw the dent, the way the dent was a physical record of a moment that was gone but remained in the metal the way the past remains in objects the way the past remains in decisions the way the past remains in the burn mark on the stove and the wear pattern on the chair and the dent in the cup and all three objects were records of the Baker family's ten years on this land and the land was dying and the objects remained and the objects were the only records because the paper records were gone and the money was gone and the hope was gone and the rain was gone and the objects remained and the traces on them remained and the traces were the history the way a piece of cast iron carries the history of every fire it has held the way a wooden chair carries the history of every body it has supported the way a tin cup carries the history of every mouth it has touched the way the Baker family carried the history of every decision they had made and the decisions had led them here to 1933 and the dust was coming and the land was dying and the objects were the only records and the records were the traces and the traces were the history and the history was the decisions and the decisions were the traces and the traces were on the objects and the objects were in the house and the house was shrinking and the family was shrinking and the land was shrinking and everything was shrinking except the traces which were accumulating the way guilt accumulates the way decisions accumulate the way a life accumulates moments that are recorded in objects and in memory and in land and in every surface that a family touches in ten years of living. The dust arrived in January 1933 and it was not the first dust storm, it was the third that year and it was the worst, and it came like a wall, a wall of Oklahoma soil that had been working for ten years and had given ten years of crops and had given nothing for two and was now being taken by the wind and carried away and the Baker family watched it come from the kitchen window and Martha was standing by the stove and the stove carried the traces of ten years of cooking and the cooking had been an act of staying, every meal was a decision to stay, to feed the family, to keep them alive on this land that was dying, and the burn mark on the second burner recorded the decision to stay in 1928 and every meal since had been a continuation of that decision, the way a trace accumulates on an object the way a decision accumulates on a life the way staying accumulates on a family the way the dust accumulated on the windows and the doors and the floors and the tables and the objects and the people, the dust was a trace too, a trace of the land being taken away, the way the dust settled on the stove and filled the scratches in the enamel with dark soil and the scratches were the traces of pots and pans and the soil was the trace of the land and the land was filling the traces of the cooking with the trace of its own disappearance, the way the past was filling the present with the record of its own destruction, the way the dust was writing a new trace on every object, a trace of disappearance, a trace of the land leaving, a trace of the decision to stay proving itself wrong, proving that staying on dying land is not heroism but slow erasure, the way the dust erased everything it touched, the way the dust was erasing the traces of ten years of life, filling the burn mark and the wear pattern and the dent and the scratches and the history with a new trace, a trace of wind and soil and disappearance and the end of staying and the end of the ten years and the end of the land and the end of the records except the records were being erased and the objects were being covered and the traces were being overwritten by a new trace, the trace of departure, the trace of the dust forcing them to leave the trace of staying ending the trace of leaving beginning the trace of the dust covering the burn mark on the stove and the wear pattern on the chair and the dent in the cup and the traces of ten years with a new trace the trace of the wind carrying the land away the trace of the family packing the objects that remained the trace of the objects carrying the traces of the family into whatever came next the trace of departure was a new trace on every object the way a new fire leaves a new trace on the stove the way a new body leaves a new trace on the chair the way a new hand leaving a new trace on the cup the way the dust left a new trace on everything and the new trace was departure and the old trace was staying and the two traces were on every object simultaneously and the two traces were the history of the Baker family ten years of staying and the beginning of departure and the departure was forced by the dust and the dust was the land refusing to be stayed on any longer and the land was leaving and the family was leaving and the objects were leaving carrying the traces with them the traces of staying and the traces of departure and the traces of ten years of cooking and sitting and drinking and working and deciding and staying and the dust was carrying away the land and the family was carrying the objects and the objects carried the traces and the traces were the only record and the record was the history and the history was the decisions and the decisions were to stay and the dust said no and the dust was the land speaking and the land was saying that staying was over and the objects recorded the over and the new trace was departure and the departure was a new decision and the new decision would leave new traces on the objects and on the people and on whatever land they found next and the cycle would continue the way traces accumulate the way decisions accumulate the way a family moves from one piece of land to another carrying its objects and its traces and its decisions and the dust was the end of one cycle and the beginning of another and the objects carried both traces the staying and the leaving the ten years and the departure the history and the future the burn mark and the dust and the wear pattern and the road and the dent and the unknown the three objects were records of the Baker family existence and the existence was disappearing and the objects would carry the traces into whatever came next and the next would be a new land and a new decision and a new trace and the cycle would continue the way a stove carries the traces of every fire and a chair carries the traces of every body and a cup carries the traces of every mouth and a family carries the traces of every decision and the decisions lead to new lands and new decisions and new traces and the dust was a trace and the departure was a trace and the staying had been a trace and all three traces were on every object and the objects were leaving and the traces were leaving and the history was leaving and the records were leaving except the records were the traces and the traces were on the objects and the objects were being packed and the packing was a trace and the departure was a trace and the dust was behind them and the dust was a trace of the land disappearing and the family was a trace of the land leaving and the objects were traces of the family staying and then leaving and the traces were accumulating on the truck that carried them and on the road they would travel and on whatever land they found and the cycle of traces would continue and the history would be carried in the objects and the objects would carry the traces and the traces would record the decisions and the decisions would lead to new lands and new decisions and new traces and the dust was the end and the beginning and the objects carried both and the stove carried the burn mark and the dust and the chair carried the wear pattern and the road and the cup carried the dent and the unknown and the three objects were the records and the records were the traces and the traces were the history and the history was the family and the family was leaving and the traces were leaving with them and the traces were all that remained and all that would remain and all that would ever remain of ten years on Oklahoma land, the traces on three objects, a stove and a chair and a cup, carrying the history of staying and the history of leaving and the history of decisions and the history of dust and the history of a family that had stayed and then been forced to leave and the objects carried the records and the records were the traces and the traces were the only thing that would survive the departure and the travel and the new land and the new decision and the new traces that would be left on the objects in whatever house they found next, the way a new fire leaves a new trace on the stove and a new body leaves a new trace on the chair and a new mouth leaves a new trace on the cup and a new land receives a new family and a new set of decisions and a new set of traces and the cycle continues the way traces accumulate the way decisions accumulate the way a life is nothing but the accumulation of traces left on objects and on land and on memory and on every surface that a family touches in ten years of living and the dust had touched everything and left its trace and the family was leaving and the objects were carrying the traces and the traces were the history and the history was the decisions and the decisions were to stay and then to leave and the leaving was a decision too and it would leave traces and the traces would accumulate and the cycle would continue and the objects would carry the traces into the unknown and the unknown would receive them and leave new traces and the cycle would continue the way a stove carries the traces of every fire the way a chair carries the traces of every body the way a cup carries the traces of every mouth the way a family carries the traces of every decision the way land carries the traces of every family that has lived on it the way Oklahoma carried the traces of the Bakers and the dust was the latest trace and the departure was the newest trace and the objects carried both and the objects would carry more and more and more until the objects were nothing but traces and the traces were nothing but history and the history was nothing but the accumulation of decisions and the decisions were nothing but the accumulation of traces and the cycle was the accumulation of cycles and the stove and the chair and the cup were records of one cycle and they would become records of the next and the next and the next and the traces would continue to accumulate and the decisions would continue to be made and the land would continue to receive and refuse and receive families and the dust would continue to blow and the objects would continue to carry the records and the records would be the only thing that survived and the traces were the survival and the survival was the trace and the trace was the decision and the decision was the trace and the cycle continued.