Welcome to the Spot Writers. Today’s post
comes from Phil Yeats. Phil (using his Alan Kemister pen name) recently
published his first novel. A Body in the Sacristy, the first in
the Barrettsport Mysteries series of
soft-boiled police detective stories set in an imaginary Nova Scotia coastal
community is available on Amazon.
The current prompt: News these days contain a plethora of depressing stuff
from floods and wildfires and other environmental problems, to mass shootings,
to refuge problems and other political and social crises, to whatever you like
as your favourite example. Write a story focused on one or more of these
depressing occurrences and give it a happy ending.
***
Shadows Hanging Over Us
by Phil Yeats
Moe plunked his coffee on the table and slumped into a
plastic chair, slouching until his chin was level with the table’s surface.
“Despite today’s bright sun and oppressive heat, four shadows darken our
world.”
“Oh, God,
what now,” I replied. Moe, the scruffy overweight killjoy in our midst, had
outdone himself with his theatrical entrance and outlandish statement. “Have
the four horsemen of the Apocalypse descended upon us?”
“Super,”
Jen interjected, smiling. The stately blonde always treated Moe’s outbursts as
jokes. “Death, famine, war, and conquest. Which one will you describe first?”
Moe
looked up, eyes mere slits. “Why should the horsemen of our modern devastation
align with the biblical ones? We’re facing an existential crisis, and you two
should bloody well appreciate it. But go ahead, mock me, everyone does.”
Jen was a
law student and social activist, and I, an ecologist studying the impact of
climate change. We, more than Moe, the philosophy student and jack of no
trades, should realize humanity teetered on the brink.
“What’s
your greatest threat?” I asked.
“Weapons
of mass destruction.”
Jen
stared wide-eyed. Getting under her thick lawyer-in-training skin was incredibly
difficult, but Moe had inexplicably accomplished it. Somehow. “Are we back in Iraq
with George Bush?”
“Symbolism,”
Moe retorted. “Weapons of mass destruction are symbolic of our ability to
unleash weapons of incredible destructiveness since the atomic bombs that ended
World War II.”
Jen
wasn’t ready to concede. “But international agreements have effectively controlled
the nuclear threat.”
Moe
snorted. “But more countries are developing nuclear arsenals, and the new
weaponry isn’t limited to nuclear bombs.”
I jumped
into the fray hoping to bolster Moe’s case. He’d been madly in love with Jen
for months but never bested her in the verbal love jousts he initiated. “With
the North Koreans possessing nuclear weapons and dingbats in Washington and
Moscow controlling the largest nuclear arsenals, the nuclear threat must have increased
dramatically.”
Jen
attempted a diversionary tactic. “I suppose you’ll blame the current refugee
crisis on these ‘weapons of mass destruction’.”
Moe
refused to acknowledge her contention. “The next threat is global warming.”
She
snorted, gazing at the ceiling. “Another issue that’s amenable to political
management. You need more compelling arguments.”
“Not so.
Governments are not curbing their militaries, and the political situation for
global warming is no better. Talk and highfalutin’ pronouncements but no action.
Consider our so-called progressive government. A few weeks ago, Trudeau walked
back from his commitment to tax companies for their carbon emissions. Then when
the US government announced they would lower gas mileage requirements, our
government meekly followed their lead.”
Jen
wagged a finger. “Your biases are showing. You’ve always been anti-Liberal.”
“We live
here so I find Canadian examples, but the problem’s global. We’re not reaching
our Paris Accord targets, and even if we do, it won’t solve the problem.”
Jen took
a deep breath and leaned forward towering over the slouching philosopher. “Your
arguments are meaningless. History shows that when humanity needs to, it finds
the will to act dramatically and effectively.”
“Not this
time,” Moe responded, sitting up with his eyes glinting. “Modern weapons are so
powerful and fast-acting they provide no response time, and climate change has
too much inertia. If we stopped increasing emissions tomorrow, temperatures
would increase for decades.”
Jen and
Moe appeared ready to increase the intensity of their sparring perhaps leading
to the romantic encounter Moe sought, but I wanted to hear about the remaining
shadows.
“Horseman
number three?” I asked.
“China,”
Moe said as he settled into his seat with the coffee he hadn’t touched.
“China,”
Jen spluttered. “You’ve already had weapons of mass destruction, so China’s
growing military might is derivative.”
Moe shook
his head. “I’m talking about their rapid economic growth. Their
political-economic model with an autocratic government directing a market
economy beholden to itself is more efficient than our western model of
democratic governments and unfettered free market economies.”
Jen’s
shoulders slumped, but she hadn’t abandoned the fight. “China will self-destruct
as her citizens demand more freedom.”
“You
hope, but China has no democratic tradition to dampen the intoxicating allure
of wealth and influence. Meanwhile, our western democracies are trapped in
downward spirals, unable to mount any opposition to the Chinese juggernaut. If
democracy is dead and the Chinese model is the future, we’ll have Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.”
“We now
have weapons of mass destruction, environmental collapse, and efficient
economies managed by ruthless autocrats. What’s modern horseman number four?” I
asked.
Moe
crushed his now empty coffee cup. “I felt four distinct shadows. The final one,
a fearsome creature, part lion, part man, remains enigmatic.”
“Bloody
hell,” Jen exclaimed, turning to me. “You got it right when you mentioned the
four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Our atheist philosopher friend has had a
religious experience. He’s seen the beast in William Butler’s Second Coming slouching ‘toward
Bethlehem to be born’.”
“So, the
end is nigh,” I said, pushing matters a little further.
“Damn
right,” Jen replied as she tugged Moe from underneath the table. “We should get
it on.”
I smiled
as Jen led Moe from the café. She looked determined, but his face displayed the
silly grin of a surprised lottery winner. The downtrodden knight had finally
won a joust.
***
Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento