Silver Lining

Welcome to The Spot Writers. The current prompt: write a poem or story in which one of the characters is a weather, personified. 

Today’s story was written by Phil Yeats. He recently published his third novel using the pen name Alan Kemister. His first two were cozy mysteries. This one has a more serious theme. The Souring Seas is the first volume in a precautionary tale about the hazards of ignoring human-induced climate change. For information about this book and others in what will be a series of three (and possibly more) novels about this important topic, visit his website.

 ***

Silver Lining

by Phil Yeats

 

I suspect every town has a grumpy old guy who never has a good thing to say about anything or anyone. Our version of Dogpatch’s Joe Btfsplk brought his dark grey cloud into town, really a village with no more people than Al Capp’s Dogpatch, two or three times a week. He was a garrulous codger who was always so pessimistic that we avoided him whenever we could. On his visits, he would come into the village diner and corner anyone he could. He would berate them about his latest pet peeve while he drank his one cup of coffee before wandering home.

Home for Joe, no one could remember his real name, was a small parcel off to one side of our pancake-flat valley with a meandering river and three smaller equally meandering tributaries. Our filled-in caldera of an ancient volcano had very steep sides with one narrow gap. Water rushed down the mountainside through this gap.

Joe’s section was about half hayfield and half forest. He rented his field to the neighbouring farmer and lived alone in a house hidden within his woodlot. No one knew what he did deep in the forest, and if we’re being honest, none of us cared.

We didn’t think about Joe and his ever-present black rain cloud that spring four years ago because it started raining before the snow melted and rained day in a day out for weeks. Before we got to the biblical forty days and forty nights without respite, our valley was flooded. On the fifty-second day, a sinkhole developed and half the buildings in our little village sank into a muddy abyss.

The province declared a state of emergency and order the evacuation of everyone in our valley. The rains had washed out our road to the outside world, so helicopters arrived to ferry out anyone who hadn’t already left. I went with two emergency relief workers in a boat to find Joe and a farmer we hadn’t seen for days.

At the edge of Joe’s woodlot, we encountered a berm that appeared to surround most of his forest. When I climbed onto the berm, he greeted me from within.

“I’m good. We’re dry here and the ground should be high enough. Have supplies and can ride it out. And I have a mission.”

“What’s that?” I asked, wondering about the change in his demeanour. It was bleak and raining cats and dogs, but I saw no sign of his personal black cloud. In fact, he seemed encased in a patch of brighter light.

“Provide a refuge for the animals, the domesticated ones we’ve rescued, and all the wild ones.”

I glanced at the emergency relief worker who’d joined me on the berm. He shrugged his shoulders and returned to the boat. I addressed Joe, as he also turned away. “Good luck. Everyone’s leaving, like today. You’ll be here on your own.”

He waved over his shoulder as he disappeared behind a tree. “We’re fine. Sam Jackson’s here with me and we’re good for at least two months.”

As day turned to night, I joined the last helicopter load of refugees.

In the aftermath, the government developed new regulations prohibiting rebuilding in areas subject to annual flooding. Three quarters of our valley, including our village site, were now unavailable for habitation. They offered us money to settle elsewhere but made no promises about rebuilding the road up our mountainside. No one returned to our isolated valley in a caldera. I moved thousands of miles away and started anew. Many others did the same.

Four years later, I saw a magazine article about an exciting new eco-community and nature reserve in the caldera of an ancient volcano. I recognized the area from photos associated with the article. When I turned a page and saw a picture of Dr. Archibald Cornwall, professor emeritus in the environmental science department of a famous university and proprietor of the eco-community, I damned near dropped the magazine. He was our village’s Joe Btfsplk. He’d transformed himself from curmudgeon with his personal black cloud to a happy, smiling beacon of light. He looked prosperous, and well, professorial, and twenty years younger.

*****

The Spot Writers—Our Members:

Val Muller: http://www.valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Phil Yeats: https://alankemisterauthor.wordpress.com/

Chiara De Giorgi: https://chiaradegiorgi.blogspot.com/