World Blog Action Day

In celebration of World Blog Day, here is my little essay on the issues surrounding the "new school" vs. "old school" debate of sustainability. I need to add one cavaet. I realize we are all striving for the same goal and that sustainability is an attempt to market environmental concerns to a new group of people, but I have meet many a person who treat sustainability as some sort of avant garde thinking. Environmentalism, believing in systems beyond just yourself, was pretty avant garde back in the 60's and still is today. The essay is more a response to the sustainability groupies then the actual concept itself, no matter how much of a tongue twister it is.

Enjoy!

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Here’s an idea! Here is how we will reclaim the environment; the whole environment! Forget sustainability! Throw away all it’s derivatives as well: sustainable style, sustainable design, sustainable art, etc. Revert to the actual word environment, realizing it already encompasses everything. You don’t need a Venn Diagram to see that. Both proponents and detractors of environmentalism pigeon hole the concept of environmentalism as something in the exclusive realm of nature. That is where the slur “tree hugger” comes from and why we call our movement as “green” movement.

"Hey, meet the new boss!Same as the old boss!"

Such stereotypes make the movement seem like it never left Walden Pond. That while everything around us falls apart and ecological services go to the way of Woolworth’s, we slap on Birkenstocks and skitter up and down the Adirondack trail. We did leave Walden Pond and we never lived there. The environment in environmentalism means home and, looking at the bigger picture, my home includes the material in my walls and decisions of my politicians. Not just the cries of songbirds in the backyard. Sustainability wants us to think that this is all new and grand. “We killed old-school environmentalism and replaced it with this new concept you will all love!” However, what is so new about looking at the big picture? Even flawed concepts like Malthus and the 60’s Population Bomb viewed environmental degradation beyond how many trees would be bulldozed to make room. They talked about food production and potential conflict over limited resources. The concepts of agriculture productivity and land availability are wide ranging. Americans talked about energy issues and conflict about them back in the 70’s. The English enclosure movement didn’t just fragment ecosystems, but also brought all the issues of feudalism and serfdom. The environmentalist movement has cast the net wide for years, only now realizing that this is the real way to go!

There is power in the word “environmentalism” It conjures up images and whether those images are stereotypical or dynamic, its effect is instantaneous. Sustainability is a conceptual curveball. What is the exact definition of sustainability? I have heard many and they all require a good four to five sentences, or a Herman Melville-esque sequence of punctuation. However, here is a nice definition of environmentalism.

It’s caring about where you live. That’s planet Earth.

Here is another example of imagery and word play. Think about the word “attorney.” What comes to mind? Maybe an empowered Atticus Finch? Johhny Cochran? Stuffy English magistrates with white wigs? Now imagine the word “legal.” Well, what does the hell does that really mean. Sheets of paper that are 11” by 17?” Just like you can’t imagine a legal system without the players in it, you can’t imagine sustainability with the life support systems it means to help. Environment is a powerful word. So is the word environmentalist. That word has done innumerable things. It has pissed off powerful people, created powerful people, cost jobs, found new jobs, asked questions, protested, bombed, sung, cried, voted, chanted, rioted, and had a good time trying to save the world. What do the hell do you even call someone all about sustainability? A sustainability advocate? A sustainabilitizer? Sustainability groupie? Many consider Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring, a mother of traditional environmentalism. But did anyone call her a tree hugger back in 1962? Chemical companies attacked her on the fact that she was a woman and that she wrote a book in common vernacular for the masses. Save the birds is a big message in her book, but another big message is “Don’t trust big business.” Environmentalism had dynamic though before the recent surge in sustainability.

What does the average, American third grade class, 4H club, or Lion’s Club do on Earth day? They probably go and pick up litter from a scenic vista. Sustainability sneers at this as too “old school.” It’s a very Western, particularly American, thing to do. Go pick up litter to save all the fishies and birdies. Impoverished people in the slums of Mexico City view those rubbish heaps as treasure troves. And, yes, it is a very American thing to do. The rest of the world better understand the “Big E” environmentalism I subscribe to. But just think about that spot. Maybe it used to be a real nice pond filled with fish that Gramps used to catch. An idyllic pond with fish a jumpin’ and frogs’ a croakin.’ All that garbage on the pond makes Gramps say, “Ah, back in my day that used to be a pond. I wish I could take little Billy there to fish, but, alas, the pond is filthy.” Then, however, that third grade class shows up with their limited view of the environment and we got a nice pond. Now Gramps can take little Billy down to the pond so that he and his grandson can bond. Maybe little Billy won’t spend so much time in front of the Xbox since he will really like to fish. And he will lose a couple of pounds because it takes a while to walk to the pond. And maybe little Billy will want to stay and raise his own family in said town because he wants to share these memories with his own son. Thanks third graders!

I realize this argument is silly and oversimplified. But isn’t it grand how a piece of land can fight obesity and gentrification, while strengthening family bonds? Don’t dismiss the power of a nice piece of a land or a nice community because it will have ripple effects. If a group of inner-city kids cleans up a vacant lot and turns it into a community park, then maybe kids will stay safe and not join gangs. Again, that is an oversimplified example, but it happens and myriad groups strive for such stability. Maybe the people building a community park in the city aren’t thinking about the Redwood trees in California, but being able to walk to a park right in your neighborhood is better for the whole biosphere then everyone driving to a community park.

Sustainability groupies point out their “new” model emphasizes the economic and social issues that environmentalists always forget. Sustainability freaks think about people, profits, prosperity, and planet. However, did our financial decisions only now begin to effect other things besides our wallets. If I buy from a store that treats its employees like crap then that is an environmental decision. Maybe those employees are my neighbors and those neighbors make up my environment. Maybe the store pays people nothing and my neighbor has to pull a double on Election Day. No one wins elections by just one vote, but maybe my neighbor’s vote would have helped get a politician in power who support renewable energy. Maybe the hard working neighbor doesn’t have the time to go to the community clean-up or try to help the poor, who have to go live in the woods at the city limits, because he has to work all day. Maybe that business forces Nicaraguan women to sew sweaters for nine cents a day so that they have even less time to get their community and countries out of the profiteer’s stranglehold. Those women live in my environment, the whole planet, and we will need their help to save the entire biosphere. Maybe I should stop supporting that business.

Just one more maybe. Maybe a sustainability hard liner reads this and says, “Stupid Garik! That is exactly what we are saying.” I know that, but I feel I already had inklings about this when I was just a kid reading 50 Things You Can Do To Save The Earth. It isn’t to say that I was some sort of prodigy, but just that I realized environment where I lived. Why would I want to drink dirty water from the river? Yeah, that makes the birds sick, but it would also make me sick and eight year old Garik pretty much looked out for number one!

The environmental movement has always had room for the bankers, bureaucrats, and, impoverished. The biggest flaw the movement made wasn’t in picking too narrow a viewpoint, but in failing to vocalize how wide ranging the inherent movement was. Sustainability isn’t something new; it is just a reaction to environmentalism earlier misstep. If there were kings and queens of sustainability then they were just environmentalists realizing there were just too many people who thought negatively about the word “environment.” They made up a new word. I don’t think environmentalism needs to die. The power in that word and concept needs to go back to its roots. It’s roots as an idea that everyone wants a good place to live. Some of us already have a comfortable place to start from and others need to get out from poverty or desperation. Environmentalism’s roots as a conceptually American idea born of Muir, Thoreau, Leopold, and even Nixon* and given to the world to adapt and change to every community and ecosystem This is “Big E” environmentalism. The environmentalism we always needed, before detractors said it was just bunch of hippies in the woods, and supporters made it actually a bunch of hippies in the woods. Preaching sustainability as something that will blow environmentalism away only makes a bunch of good-hearted and caring people circle the wagons and shoot in. It makes it easier for those that fail or just don’t want to look at the big picture to profit in the long term. Only a fool would say “I only care about the trees! Fuck everything else!” And we have had such fools (i.e., hippies), but we have always had intelligent people waiting to make a difference for the entire biosphere that includes all of nature’s creations, and those of humanity.

Peace!


Picture source originally UNESCO.

Getting Ready for the FLEFF

The Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival (FLEFF) is almost here and I am pretty damn excited! I have enjoyed seeing the FLEFF evolve throughout my six something years in CNY. I remember back in freshmen year of college, it was called the Cornell Environmental Film Festival and had showings all over the place. Funny to note that as the name of the festival has gotten broader, that the actual showing locations have gotten smaller. What is now the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival only has showings at Ithaca College and Ithaca's local art house theaters Cinemapolis* and Fall Creek. I really don't mind too much. Every year I grab the nice glossy flier with all the movies and begin to meticulously plan out which ones I can see. I always plan to see about twenty of them, but usually make due with just three or four.

I appreciate the FLEFF because it uses a very broad use of the word environment. I understand this meaning is often lost on some. Last year, while I was still at IC, Amanda and I had an unfortunate encounter with one of Ithaca's renowned local activists. She was irate that the film festival "wasn't" environmental enough with films about globalization and the war on Iraq lining the schedule. She apparently took us as the festival planners and freaked out before storming away. **

I understand the word "environmental" conjures up images of trees and nature. However, the environment is the entire living system and even something as abstract (abstract in that you can't touch it) as globalization is environmental. Everything we do relates back to the land. And while some might feel overwhelmed that something like the fresh flowers on their desk could mean human exploitation and environmental degradation (most 1-800 flowers are grown in Venezuela, Ecuador, etc by poor workers with no protection from the pesticides applied), I find it empowering. No, I am not a freak. Well, not that kind of freak. I don't feel exhilarated at people having their fingers ripped by rose thorns. What I mean is that it is empowering to know the effects everyday decisions have on the world at large and what one can do about it! It is cheesy to say, but knowledge is power. Just being cognizant of these issues is the first step towards small contributions.

I appreciate how the festival organizers bring up discussions about natural ecology and human sustainability without covering the celluloid in streak of green. Don't get me wrong; I think next year they should spool all episodes of Captain Planet together and show them for 24 hours non-stop as a piece on early environmental thought in young Generation Y'ers. Nothing wrong with an outwardly environmental film, but those don't necessarily have to be nature documentaries.

I am particularly excited for films like Black Gold, Blowing Up Paradise, The Disappearing of Tuvalus: Trouble in Paradise, The Fittest Survive, The Language of Wine, Liberia: A Fragile Piece, and Jonestown: The Life and Death of the People's Temple. I'll be lucky to even see maybe two of those, but maybe you can check out some too!? Here is the schedule.

Peace!






* Can anyone pronounce this for me? Cinemapolis? I understand it should be fairly simple, but it throws me for a loop every time.
"Hey, Garik, where did you see that movie you can't stop talking about?"
"Oh, you know, that place downtown. Cine..aa..ma..lis...*head explodes*"

** If you live in Ithaca then you should now who I am talking about. Yeah, don't think too hard because it is the first person that comes to mind. In her defense, I do have one grievance with the FLEFF. I understand you can't show all the films in the Park Auditorium or Ford Hall (you know, the place where people actually see performances), but do you really need to schedule a film in Williams 224 during the 9:25 TR session of "Academic Writing 1?" Seriously, some of the classrooms at IC are glamorized broom closets. I saw one movie last year in a tiny and slanted room deep in the bowels of the absolute labyrinth that is Smiddy Hall! I think HR Giger and MC Escher designed that building. And CNS 115? Man, everyone's been in there!

A classic

This isn't new. In fact, this story is a bit old. Well, old as in about four years ago. It is the first true piece of creative fiction I produced in this "modern" (i.e., "hey i want to be a writer!") age. I had the inspiration on one rainy Earth Day back during freshmen year in college. It is a science fiction story. It is a genre I like, but don't really feel like exploring as a professional career.

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!

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Temperature

By Garik Charneco

We were supposed to go to Toronto today and get some wheat, but the Bureau wouldn’t let us. We had used the car too much and exceeded our weekly emission allotment. Ever since the warming began it seemed like we went to Toronto more and more for the stuff. We were going to press, mill, and bake it into bread because we couldn’t grow wheat in our garden. Kelly also said we could not go to the market. “Too expensive,” he said any time I asked him. “And why should we waste our allotment on that? If we are going to make things worse then we should at least have a good reason!” Kelly always called the shots; he was always business. Kelly was made of metal, a man forged for this melting world.

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 Toronto. Kelly decided to head over to Carlo’s and see if he would lend us his car. Carlo hardly used it since his accident at Old Man Miller’s tree farm.

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 Toronto.” No one would give us a ride and driving beyond your allotted limit was unthinkable. Once you went over the set limit the feedback mechanism kicked in and cut off the power to your car. The Bureau knew all.

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 Toronto.” I nodded.

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, West Nile and the newer ones whose names I couldn’t even pronounce. Even Kelly was scared; he wore a jacket, gloves, and a hat, even though it was summer, just like me. Then again, it was always summer here.

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 Toronto and to food. Kelly kicked a clod of freshly uprooted dirt at my feet and I looked up at him when it hit my boots. He was smiling at me. His smile wasn’t congratulatory, but instead pantomimed “I told you so!” Still, it’s a smile and if my face hadn’t been blood red from all the digging he would have seen my blush.

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.

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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!