Genre writing always gets stigmatized and in most cases that disdain is justified. There is way too much Star Wars fan fiction out there too not say "science fiction" and not expect some chortle. Trust me. My first piece of creative fiction ever? Well it was a Star Wars fan fiction! Really dumb. Trust me! However, I feel Temperature isn't a genre piece. I stayed in my usual style of hero worship with it and this one has a sword too! You must dismiss the sword as a genre touch. At the time I wrote the first draft of Temperature it had finished Frank Herbert's original Dune arc. Crysknifes are damn cool.
Temperature is about climate change and just a look at a world living in the hyper effects of global warming. Will it be like this? Probably not, but it was fun to play around with the ramifications of possible effects. This is not uncommon in science fiction or even any fiction. Ever see Red Dawn? Oh man, yeah, it's great, but that is what I am talking about. What if scenarios, you see. I also wanted to put this post up because of this story, which broke yesterday. It might seem dinky, but it is important. In fact, it could be landmark, just like the little publicized admission by the Bush administration that human actions do influence climate change. That story seems hard to find online as if it went down the Memory Hole. However, we can preserve this one.
In other news...a team of polar bears is on its way to Michael Circhton's house. Orson Scott Card is next on their list. Reports say both are nervous, particularly Card, who reports Battle School has never had a Polar Bear army!
Temperature
By Garik Charneco
We were supposed to go to
From outside I heard some rustling in the grass. The sound was shifty, furtive and from Belle. Belle was our very lucky “what you could almost call” cow. Belle was pre-Slaughter Act. I forgot what genes were spliced to create her but they kept her estrogen high. Belle endured a constant state of false pregnancy in order to keep the milk flowing.
She meandered up to a window and nudged at the mosquito net. Kelly rolled his eyes and got up. “I thought I told you to tie this netting down?” He elbowed Belle back while tying the drawstrings around some pegs in the wall. “You want malaria or something?”
“Sorry. I wasn’t feeling too hot this morning so I must have forgotten.”
Belle mooed and under the awning’s shade we could see the green iridescence of her fur.
Kelly finished tying off the strings and took a step back. “Jesus, that light thing really creeps me out.” He cocked his head back at me, “Most people just have a dog you know. We can still have those.”
“I think Belle’s fur is beautiful and it is just an identifying feature so farmers could keep track of cattle. For the methane you know.”
Kelly was at the door. “I did complete Bureau training so I do know and I also know how illegal preserving a pre-warming is.” He just cracked the door open and slid one his shoulders into the opening. “I am going to make sure that it is tied up. And in the shed.” He slithered out and I heard him over the footfalls of boots. “We should just get rid of it.”
I looked down and examined the folds in my sweatshirt, trying to think how big it could get. “We’ll need the milk.”
Belle made her angry noise as Kelly grabbed her reins. I didn’t see any of that but I understood Belle. Kelly thundered over the clop of her hooves. “Bureau says that stuff is carcinogenic. An after-effect of those tracker genes. Just another reason to get rid of this.” I heard the shed door creak open and shut.
During lunch Kelly couldn’t eat his stew without bread. We really needed to go to
Hours later Kelly walked in with sweat still clinging to his brow and noticeably angry. “That damn cripple! Carlo doesn’t want anyone touching his car! He’s under investigation for cooling crimes!”
That meant no wheat at all. Most of our garden space was dominated by the plants the Bureau told us to plant, fast growing and pollution tolerant but not very nutritious. The trip north was essential to our food supply and even though our current pantry could get us through the week it would never last us any longer.
Kelly said we had to do something desperate.
“Of course we have to do something desperate,” I whined, trying to keep any sarcasm out of my voice. “We certainly can’t walk all the way to
Kelly’s eyes flared. “You’re already getting moody and besides I just got a great idea.” He pointed down the road towards the old Miller house. “If we manage to steal one of his sycamores, even just a baby, we could increase our allotment. The Bureau man does his weekly round tomorrow and if we hurry we can do it!”
He ran to the back of the house and soon all I could hear was the cacophony of rusty tools scratching against each other.
The main way to propagate the “cooling,” according to the Bureau, was to plant sycamores. They were our salvation because they were fast growing, pollution resistant, and hungry for the carbon rich air. Every vacant lot or piece of empty space had one and soon it was as common as kudzu vines were to my parents. Planting a tree gave you the extra emissions allotment on your car so you could drive far north enough, where food was plentiful. A sycamore in the backyard was the key to everything like food, travel, prestige, power, and safety. No other tree would do. It was sycamore or nothing.
Miller was lucky enough to be born into money. As a result, his family was able to buy several sycamore seeds when the Bureau first showed up. When the total cooling values for all of their trees were added up they had enough for an entire fleet of cars. They drove whenever they wanted, ate meat everyday, and didn’t have to endure energy rationing. Luxury made them lazy, even too lazy to create anyone to inherit their wealth. In the end it was just Old Man Miller with no kids to assume his botanical fortune. Once he died, other tree barons would swoop in to claim the resources. By stealing one of his saplings we were actually doing him a favor. At least that was what Kelly said while he fought to get the old hand cart out of the garden shed.
“What is he going to do with all those trees anyway?”
I held the door open for Kelly. “Yeah, but it is stealing.”
The cart came rolling out and Kelly rolled it out to a patch of grass. He started hooking on some strips of cloth from the handles. “It all goes to the same cooling. Think like a citizen for once.” He told me to go and fetch Belle since she was pivotal to the operation. It was going to be the whole house tonight.
Even though Miller was our neighbor we still had to walk a decent distance to get to his place. On the way Kelly explained the plan.
“It’s easy enough,” he says. “We hop the fence and grab one of the saplings he always has near the compost.” He pointed backwards, towards the house. “Then we drag it back to the place with the help of Belle here,” he patted her on the shoulder and she gave him on of her unique noises. “Plant it and when the Bureau representative comes tomorrow we get instant access to
We saw the first lights of Miller’s house at the end of the road and Kelly began to maneuver Belle off to the side. Once we got to the fence he unfastened the straps that tied Belle to the cart and handed the makeshift reins to me. From his bag there was a brief glint of refracted moonlight as he pulled out a saw and got to work on the wooden fence. I kept a look out.
“Don’t you think we might wake him? He is old but he always has the gun with him. Nearly killed Carlo last year when he tried to steal a seed.” I looked at the house and I was relieved to see no windows lighting up. “And that was just a seed.”
Kelly didn’t even bother to look at up at me and instead he just kept sawing away at the fence. He was through the first beam and began to work on the second one when he answered me. “Old man Miller isn’t going to come out,” he said.
“Why not?” I retorted. He seemed shocked by my lack of faith and it took him a moment to respond.
Curling his lips into a scowl Kelly said, “He is too afraid of the mosquitoes.” His tone of voice reminded me of the way Bureau agents spoke. I mouthed a response but he quickly placed his gloved hand over my half open mouth. “Save it,” and he kept cutting. I feared the mosquitoes too. I mean who didn’t? Malaria seemed like such a foreign thing when my parents were still around but now it was here. And so were dengue,
After Kelly was done cutting through the beams he pointed to a spot where there was just enough moonlight to show three neat little holes in the ground. A staked shovel stood there in a mound of fresh dirt. Tiny saplings, maybe four years old, with burlap sacks enveloping their roots stood over the holes. Kelly scrambled over while I kept a look out for anything. I gazed over at Miller’s house and saw that all the windows remained darkened. Kelly inspected the largest sapling and wrapped his hand around the tender wood. In time, the bark would become mottled and tanned but we would only see that happen if we made it out of here. I wished it were older. If it had been just a bit more mature then we could have just stolen some seeds. That would have been good enough. To the Bureau a promise of tree was just as good as a real one.
I made sure that Belle was still fastened to the fence post and then with a final glance at the Miller house I headed into the field. I pushed the cart with surprising stealth and I hoped that he’d noticed that. He grabbed the shovel and jammed it under the bottom of the sack. For a minute or two he fought against the tree’s massive weight and the shovel tip cut the bag open a bit. The sack began to spout off thick dark earth as if it were bleeding. Kelly grunted and struggled with the tree and when I tried to help he ordered me back.
“You think you can lift in your condition!? Just keep a lookout!”
Finally the tree gave way and he was able to prop it up on the edge of the cart. The cart leaned back on its wheels just so that the handles pointed upward like a piece of artillery. Between pants he grunted and after those he wheezed with exhaustion. The looked was ridiculously heavy and dried leaves cascaded onto us whenever Kelly shook it too hard. After many failed attempts I began to doubt if he would ever get it on the cart. I began to eye the other, much smaller, trees. Kelly would never go for that though. I stared at the sweating mass that was next to me and knew that it would never happen. We had to do it his way.
Another huge grunt broke the night air. Belle brought her head up at the noise but at the Miller house the lights remained off. Kelly had finally gotten the tree onto the cart. He latched the gate closed and then slid to the dirt.
“Go…get…Belle,” he said pointing at her shimmering figure. Belle had been chewing happily on grass all that time and gurgled when I grabbed her bit. At the cart Kelly was still spent so he instructed me on how to tie her to the cart. I wasn’t sure if the homemade straps would hold but Kelly had made them.
He got up and had enough energy left to slap her haunch. The crack of flesh on flesh curdled my skin. Belle began to move and the lights stayed off. We managed to inch off the property and down the road with our botanical salvation in tow. When we finally got to our house Kelly tossed me a shovel and said, “What is it at anyway? Five months? You could still dig.” He got up and went into the house. “I am going to take a break and will come back later to finish. Just maybe move the topsoil or something.” He swung the door open, leaving Belle and I in the yard.
The Bureau man showed up early the next day and we still had dirt caked under our fingernails. According to standard protocol a single guard accompanied him. The agent was short and hunched over from years at his desk. Being outside, even in this mess of an atmosphere, must have been a relief. He was new to the area and did not notice that where there was grass last week there now stood a four-year-old tree. Even if he had bothered to look at his meticulously kept and collated paperwork I doubt he would have cared. Progress was progress.
The guard, on the other hand, looked completely at ease outdoors and had probably participated in numerous campaigns against “cooling criminals”. He carried no guns; instead he proudly wore a sword at his hip. Even Kelly didn’t know why they carried such antiquated weapons. He guessed it was the lead in bullets. I was too afraid to ask because I thought it would get me an up-close look.
After gazing at the tree the Bureau man smiled and told his brutish guard to run back to their car and call the dispatch. He whipped out a tiny pocket calculator and furiously entered numbers into it. He calculated the amount of the emissions the tree would remove and how much our new allotment would be. I hoped that it would be enough to get us to
There was a clanging noise that came from behind the house and a sick gurgling gasp. The grass in the back once again rustled and from behind the house Belle popped out her long brown face. In daylight she looked like any other pre-Warming cow but Kelly still mouthed the words “Oh shit!” I immediately looked at the Bureau man.
The agent wasn’t as angry as I thought he would be but the guard had already laid a hand on the hilt of his sword. To my surprise the impish little man somehow stood up straight and he thundered in an, equally surprising, powerful voice.
“What is the meaning of this?!” he asked.
Kelly looked back at Belle and then quickly at me. I was still shocked at the sound of the man’s voice and my hesitance annoyed him. Kelly rolled his eyes at me and quickly gave the fuming agent a brief wolfish flash of teeth.
“We found this…thing,” he pointed to Belle who was content with her cud, “in the woods out back wandering free and were going to turn it over to you.” He seemed pleased with his handling of the situation and gave me a quick and firm nod.
I wanted to scream, “No! Belle is ours!” I looked at her and when she stared back at me from behind her cud-chewing, brown-eyed gaze, tears started to well up in my eyes. I just put my head down and nodded so quickly that my ponytail flipped up from behind and whapped me in the eyes. Dozens of auburn tips tickled the tears out of my eyes.
Kelly didn’t even bother to look at me and stayed focused on the Bureau man. “Sorry,” he gestured towards me, “just emotional. Really not suited for this world if you ask me.” He then gestured to Belle who was still chewing away. “She’s all yours.”
I opened up one moist eye and peeked out from underneath my drenched sleeve. The Bureau man seemed shocked, but believed Kelly’s excuse. Right now everything in the front yard was a lie and only through tear-drenched eyes could I make it all out.
The agent once again motioned to his guard but this time pointed him forward instead of back. He commended Kelly in a speech that could have been pulled right from the radio ads they ran every night, “You have trapped a truly dangerous animal and done your part for the cooling.” With a flick of his wrist the agent ordered the guard to step forward and the burly man walked toward Belle cautiously as if she were some sort of wild beast. When he reached me I was still all curled up into a ball of goo. He drew his sword and the metallic whisper of the pull brought my glance up. From behind my little water fall I stared right at him and whispered, “Why?”
He looked back at Kelly and the Bureau man but they hadn’t heard it. Kelly was holding up a pink piece of paper in his hands. It was the receipt for our new emissions allotment. The guard looked down again and said, “What is the matter with you babe?” He caught a glimpse of my stomach. “Think of that kid of yours. It’s progress.”
He turned away from me and in a fluid stroke raised the blade. His grace was surprising but the Bureau was just full of surprises. Then with the same dexterity he swooped down and the brown cow from behind the house never saw it coming. It hit her and the only sound was a hideous thump as her body met the ground. The crash kicked up a little breeze and it felt cooler already.
_________________________________________
Recently, I mused deleting this blog too and leave the blog-o-sphere for good. However, I got a positive post on one of my stories! One of the wonderful people at Bookcrossing stumbled across the site and read "Wheeze" and said some nice things about it! YAY! I will stay, but with less bad-snark, more good snark and just more writing. Peace!
No comments:
Post a Comment