Rambling

Prose

The Nature of Storms

The sky is pregnant with the quiet clouds of an expectant storm. Tumbling higher and higher in billows they silently grow in majesty, rising above man and mountain. Angel white at first their mood darkens as the sun is hidden away and a chill slides across the land now being held in shadow.

Should we flee the storm or brave the tempest?

Only a question, but one which encroaches on this moment stealing away the importance of all other issues. To ride the storm taking the pulse of thunder, feel the stinging breath of wind and rain on our faces and to dodge the violence of random bolts from the dark skies. This is living life on the edge of existence and truly can fill all the moments with exhilaration tinged with fear and glee. After its passing we will have known we have once truly lived.

Or should we seek shelter racing mere steps away from an oblivion rolling across the land to smash us flat without care or concern. Malice without intent directed upon every element of the land that we are part of. Sheltered can we share warmth against the chill brought on by this dark menace or do we closet ourselves separately away and wait for the storms passing.

Whatever decision is made or whatever decision we make comes within its own time and can be taken from us without a measure for our concern. Such is the nature of storms.

City

It was long after sunset. At least it was long after the specified time in the almanac for sunset to have occurred. With the effects of climate change making themselves known, August in Scotland had change a bit over the years since the millenniums turn.  In Scotland a sunset witnessed within one’s lifetime is always a magical time since it only occurs as rarely as a blue moon and is to be treasured. It is said that those who bear witness to more than one a year are touched by the fairy. But then again there are many sayings which attribute all odd behavior to the fairy and their like. While the sun had long since faded towards the west and the Americas the sky still remained aglow for several hours after its passing. Such is the late summer skies in Edinburgh. Winter the opposite is true. When he sun leaves the sky for the night, so goes the light as well. It’s no wonder winters here in the North are at times unsettling as dark dreams.

I live in a box. Well at least part of me does, some of the time. 

What is it Like?

Well it’s not as cramped as you would think. The concept of sharp corners and highly defined boundaries is completely overstated in most people’s expose of these manifestations. Believe me when I say a lot of people get caught in boxes from time to time.

Surprisingly the box I occupy is highly fluid in its construction. I really never know where the boundaries are going to be from one day to the next and sometimes from moment to moment everything is in such a flux I can’t tell one change from the other. It could be maddening to be caught in this curious cycle but one both accepts the madness, and treats the boundaries as the illusions that they are or you resist with lucid stubbornness which then crushes the life out of you right in front your eyes.  Amazing how a concept can take on a separate life of its own.

The Quiet Woods were Not

 The quiet woods were not. Not an animal cried nor a brook babbled and the whisper of the wind through the trees was muted so that only the hare hiding in the hollow log could hear its passing. Had I only had those ears I might have heard the hidden sounds, the quiet reverberations of death stalking me, preying on my misstep, my faltering at the crux of survival. No, I walked blindly to the colors of this predator, its sign of passing merging with my vision of the world. I was naïve to life's brevity.

The story fragment...

With sweat blurring her vision Wen Chi loaded clippings she had dragged from the roof lawn into the hopper. She bent down fighting the pain in her back and tossed in the packaging she had stolen out of the market's recycle bins earlier today on her way home from work. Satisfied that the stack in the hopper was sufficient to last a couple of days, Wen Chi turned and started the climb up the pole ladder back up to the third level where she made her home.

Pilfering the packaging had been a risk but the packaging didn't mass a lot and the unexpected use of more electricity these last few weeks had put a dent in her energy bank.  When the alarms on the bins had not gone off she decided to grab a few extra expanded cellulose cartons used to protect glassware during shipping from the refuse bins. Wen Chi often wondered if the alarms were actually doing anything at all but in world where electronics were part of the dust you breathed in every moment of the day she was sure some accounting was being done by somebody or something somewhere. Like most townsmen she fueled her digester and fuel cells from the refuse pilfered from the recycle bins in the markets and the organics she grew. As long as everyone only hand carried refuse away and not try to fill up a cart from the bins, the market's material managers and energy stewards seemed to cast a blind eye to the theft.

 In the recent past over zealous stewards who caught and sent customers to jail often found that they soon were without customers. Markets without customers would in turn cut back on employees for the lack of commerce. Since a stewards position was typically the lowest position in the market management structure the success of the market would ebb and flow in a very Darwinian manner. 

Earlier, after arriving home, Wen Chi had carried water up the stairs 8 liters at a time slowly toping off the roof cistern. With the Cistern full on the eleventh trip up she had opened the shutters on the oven and filled the collector kettle so that she could heat part of the last trip's water for tea and oatmeal porridge. Pushing the oven out the window on it's swing arm and seeing that the attitude control of the oven was set correctly to track the sun Wen Chi had climbed back up to the roof to weed her garden and mow the bright lime green tsen grass using a push reel mower.

Tsen grass was a godsend to the village and the townsmen. It soaked up the ultra violet and grew at good pace and most animals could not palate the taste and insects were repulsed by it. The clippings which smelled like boiled eggs when rendered were a significant source of methane which was rich source of hydrogen. The only problem was that the grass could not survive competition with other species of natural earth foliage so weeding the grass was always on the daily schedule. Wen CHi was climbing up to the roof finish off this last task for the day anticipating dinner brewing below.

The coolness spilling down the access shaft from above warned her that even with the simplest technologies things often go wrong and remain out of the control or mere mortals. By the time she had pulled herself up the last staggered rung of the ladder her eyes confirmed that Mother Nature again had put a damper onto the evening meal with clouds spilling in from the ocean blocking off the sun and chilling the solar oven. Dinner was going to be late and luke warm.

. . . . To Be continued.