EarthSourceMedia

Dance to the Apocalypse 

by joey racano

 

EarthSourceMedia Reports for November 18th, 2009

‘From on high four horseman came,

White, black, red, ash, with manes of flame

No time for cry, remorse, or shame,

Teeth did gnash; we were all to blame’

Dance to the Apocalypse

Los Osos, California, November, 2009

Not a good sign, I thought. A snicket in the San Luis Obispo Tribune said, ‘Families living downwind from Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant can pick up two free doses of ‘KI’, Potassium Iodide –a product called ‘’ThyroSafe‘. I enjoy the feeble public relations attempts by those in the mushroom cloud business. It’s hard to put a smiley face on plutonium that stays dangerous for a half-million years- and harder still to convince us they’ll have a local branch open in AD 502009.

Further south, the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station goes by the acronym ‘S.O.N.G.S.’. Quite a song- we’ll be lulled to sleep as plutonium leaches into the drinking water. On the Central Coast of California, I live dangerously close to the Diablo Plant, once calling it the ‘Devil Canyon Atomic Reactor‘ during a Nuclear Regulatory Commission meeting. Protecting his friends in industry, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently vetoed a bill to mandate seismic testing of an earthquake fault found just offshore here. Instead of ‘ThyroSafe‘, maybe they should be handing out muscle relaxers.

New York, June, 2185

Our jeans were soaked from crawling in wet grass, but Central Park was close and we had to stay low. A small band of third-generation survivors trying to eek out a living in the Post Apocalyptic World, we had come in search of food and clean element. Environmental contamination left over from the industrial age had poisoned the air and water so badly that filters on our backs were the only thing between us and death. We needed a fresh element every six months, for our personal air filters, and for the water filter we each took turns carrying. Sometimes we just washed our elements, but that caused a mental slowdown that could get you killed. When your element was dirty, everybody suffered.

Manhattan Island hadn’t seen real electricity in over 100 years, but background radiation levels had the LED lights glowing like kaleidoscopes in the moist evening air. This wasn’t my first trip to New York, but it was for the others, and traveling to the core -what was left of the ‘big apple’- was always a dangerous proposition.

A bloody moon rose over the fog as someone showed a flat hand, the universal signal for shut the fuck up. There were voices up ahead, the first we’d heard other than our own for almost a year. That could mean help, or it could mean trouble, and we made our approach low, slow, and silent.

California, November, 2009

I am having a hard time getting ‘up’ for the world conference on climate change soon to be held in Copenhagen. President Obama has said Americans shouldn’t expect a binding agreement among nations. Not even the ‘Cap and Trade’ rouse, that wouldn’t slow the climate change locomotive anyway. It’s not as if the signs aren’t all there. Alarms bells are ringing, yellow lights are flashing and red flags are waving! In the 12 years since the 1997 climate talks at Kyoto, oceans have risen an inch and a half, droughts and fires are more severe, and everything from bears to butterflies to pine forests are in deep trouble. Temperatures for the last 12 years are 0.4 degrees warmer than for the 12 years before. With all signs pointing toward doomsday, it occurs to me we can’t wait for our leaders to take the dynamic actions that might save us. We as individuals have to make all the right moves, right now. Sounds far-fetched, but it’s that or die.

Manhattan, 2185

A rusty ‘71^st Street’ sign jutted from the grass, confirming our position as old Central Park. Our stealthy band peered from the underbrush onto a surreal scene of people in tattered clothing gathered around a circular, glowing monument. We were about to reveal ourselves when shots rang out in the distance. causing the gray-clad group to scatter. Abandoning their ritual, they ran into the brush and disappeared in the direction of the commotion. Wasting no time, we emerged from our hiding places for a closer look. The large round monument stood in a clearing, basking in the glow of candles. A single word in old American was scrawled across its center, saying: ‘IMAGINE’. But none of us were able to imagine much more than gathering canned goods left strewn about and staying alive in the P.A.W. We snuffed and stowed all the candles but one, then retreated back to the cover of the underbrush.

Imagine

California, 2009

Ever connect with a story a little too much? I recently did, with a story about the new green technologies being designed to save us from destruction wrought by the old technologies. In this case, the story was about how fake trees can be manufactured to sequester CO2 from the atmosphere. Notice the lack of emphasis on slowing or stopping our habit of generating CO2, but rather mitigating its effects through sequestration. Mitigation is not a solution, but the problem. Take the ‘Clean Coal’ ruse for instance- why capture CO2 from burning coal and pump it into the ground when it’s already in the ground? The ocean operated as an efficient sink for our industrial emissions from the 1950’s until the 1980’s. However, those emissions began slowly changing the ocean’s chemistry, turning it acidic. That acidification not only started a world-wide die off of coral reefs, but greatly diminished the ocean’s ability to capture CO2 (Oceans’ Absorption of Fuel Emissions Is Slowing, Study Suggests, New York Times Thursday, November 19th, 2009). Unfortunately, our response to the crisis is to ignore the problem, -the burning of fossil fuels- preferring instead to focus on searching for new methods of CO2 capture and sequestration. This is all part of the so-called ‘green’ technologies, or what I refer to as the cottage industries of the apocalypse.   

The whole idea of portraying industrial technologies as green is silly. You can’t build new single family homes and call them green, even if they use solar energy, gray water irrigation systems and low flush toilets. There’s nothing green about new development- it destroys habitat, sticks another straw into an already overburdened aquifer, and does it all just so municipalities –funded by developers fees- can continue operations.

If you think we had it bad because we never got to see our land the way Daniel Boone saw it, imagine a future where the kids of tomorrow walk down the street thinking fake trees are the norm! And the artist’s rendition was scary- they look like the arms of a giant egg beater. They may sequester CO2, but birds won’t nest in them, I wouldn’t read a book under one of them, and it just isn’t a tree, right Mr. Bluebird? And watch out for those propellers!

 

 fake trees?

Manhattan, 2185

Traveling by cover of night, we crossed into the once-bustling metropolis of New York City. Verdant streets led us to the industrial district, where old growth trees of unknown species grew straight, thick and tall. Faded graffiti covered a crumbling wall, where someone long ago had scrawled, ‘ROOTS WILL CRACK THE CONCRETE EARTH’. It turned out to have been quite prophetic. Vegetation had indeed cracked through the asphalt. Seeds became plants, and plants became trees, revealing the secret to the success of local post-apocalyptic survivors. The cracked pavement revealed fertile and uncontaminated soils long hidden beneath, now nurturing hidden gardens that lay cultivated between the trees. We helped ourselves, filling our pockets with late-season squash, kale and corn, making sure to leave room for the precious element we still hoped to find. We searched amid the rows of red-brick ruins, and one contained what we had come for. High above the rubble and still clinging to life by a single rusted chain, a sign said: ‘Best-pirator Corp.’.

Leaving two Guards posted outside, I led the Scouts in. Precious minutes passed as we waited for our eyes to adjust. Crouching silently in the inky blackness, blood pounded in our temples like the war drums of Armageddon. We were soon able to make out the torpedo-like shapes strewn wildly about -element! Dropping to one knee, we made a quick, on-the-spot first change. With a single breath, our minds cleared and our night-vision sharpened. We took all we could carry to the guards outside, and went back in for more. By the time we emerged, the Guards had changed their elements and were working on our water tank. We managed a quick gulp of fresh water and made for the brush. Locals wouldn’t take kindly to competition, and with the human gene pool dangerously thin, we didn’t want to kill anyone.

Having found what we came for, it was time to move south. Deep South.  

 California, 2009

Paranoia strikes deep

Into your heart it will creep

It starts when you’re always afraid

Step out of line and the man comes and takes you away

-Richie Havens

America is a land of legacy. One of those legacies is the Star Spangled Banner. Written by Francis Scott Key, it was inspired by a giant American flag at Fort Sumter after a night of being bombarded by the British in 1861. By the dawns early light, our flag was still there, and so was the American dream of freedom.

Another legacy is the long-lasting environmental damage from the cold war. Several decades of mindless paranoia, nuclear testing, and defense industry profits left a radioactive mess, -staggering in scope- deep under the majestic landscape of Nevada (Nuclear Scars: Tainted water runs beneath Nevada desert, LA Times, November 13^th, 2009). Sheer numbers tell the whole story:

By U.S. Energy Department estimates, 921 nuclear tests over a 41-year period ending in 1992, contaminated 1.6 trillion gallons of water with 300 million curies of radiation. That is enough radioactive water to fill a lake 25 feet deep, a mile wide and 300 miles long. Because the test site was on higher ground than surrounding areas, the water is migrating about 18 feet per year, and withdrawing groundwater from surrounding areas will increase that speed. With development rampant and water at a premium, that is sure to happen. Russia didn’t get us, but the radioactivity might. In any case, the Energy Department says there are no plans for a cleanup.

New Jersey, 2185

We knew where we were headed, but argued about how to get there. The Scouts wanted to continue on foot, the Guards thought it would be best to take a boat south along the coast. I suggested we travel west into Ohio and raft the river southward, entering Georgia from the Northwest.  Our bands final destination was a hilltop in the Northeast corner of Georgia. Rafting in would mean having to cross the State on foot, dealing with Radigators, snakes and whatever else had mutated. The only good thing about Radigators is they’re easy to see, but being at the top of the food chain, they carry enormous amounts of radiation. You can’t eat them anymore- but they can still eat you.

In the end, we decided to travel South on foot, using an old Indian trail. It was a straight shot through heavy forest and would safely take us as far as D.C. The coast would be too dangerous, where warm ocean waters could trigger lightning. It was always best to travel inland and only when the weather was cold. Summer brought high temperatures and the heat lightning that set off lightstorms.  Lightstorms were a legacy of global warming. Rising temperatures eventually reached a threshold, causing the sea floor to release large quantities of methane gas it had long held captive. Upwellings transported the gas to the surface, where it lay as mist on the water. A lightning strike ignites the methane, like the Fuel-air explosives of the 21^st century, and everything is incinerated for miles. Not a bug, not a blade of grass survives.

We had the exact coordinates of our destination: 34.2 degrees North latitude, 82.9 degrees West longitude. That information came from a mysterious fellow we met at a shelter in the Appalachians during the last light storm. Until then, we really had no hope for the future. He walked right in out of the lightstorm- said he was some kind of a priest.

California, 2009

President Obama has expressed frustration and dwindling patience with Iran’s rapidly maturing nuclear program. The United States speaks with some authority on the subject, being the only nation on Earth to use nuclear weapons on another country- having done so twice.  

Meanwhile, Strategic Command Commander General Kevin Chilton urged the United States to invest in a generation of newer, more powerful nuclear weapons during a speech on November 20^th, at the Air Force Association Conference in Los Angeles.

With Pakistan, India, Russia, China, the United States, Israel, and North Korea all possessing nuclear weapons, perhaps the U.S. should spend less time condemning the fledgling Iranian nuclear program and pay more attention to Israel, a volatile country right next door that has 400 nuclear bombs, no nuclear treaty, and a prevailing belief among its people that they have been chosen by God.

Maryland, 2185

The blood of our scouts helped us pick up the Indian trail along a dry creek bed in the Prince George’s region of Maryland. That was Indian blood of course; it ran through their veins. They were both descended of the Delaware, who lived along the shores of the Delaware River in New Jersey.  They still spoke a form of Algonquian, and communicated only by sign language. They possessed scouting skills second to none, were expert trackers, and could be counted on to help us avoid trouble. The trail was clear and fast, the forest floor padded and silent. We whispered through the woods like elves, breaking no branches and making no sound.

A delicious irony was the Post Apocalyptic World men had created. The trees were many and diverse, the deer large and abundant. From our verdant footpath, we were seeing the area much as it had been a thousand years before, when men killed only to live, rather than living only to kill. The trees were flush with apples and berries, the forest floor a carpet of purple sorrel. We ate on the move, never stopped for long, and barely even slowed down. This was the land of the Pascataway, the original tribe of the Chesapeake who left their ancestral hunting grounds rather than convert to Christianity when Lord Calvert landed in 1634. They probably used this trail for hundreds of years, for the same reason the deer did- it was a fast, safe and secret way to travel from one side of the region to the other.

We emerged into bright sunshine and wind on a sand dune overlooking a shallow estuary that used to be Chesapeake Bay. Sloshing through brackish water made the going slower, but the view was worth it. We left the wet sand behind by late afternoon, and soon stood on the shore of the Potomac, amid the ruins of America’s former capitol.  A stone structure poked from the hard mud about knee-high. With Guards posted in front and behind, I hacked thick, stubborn vines away until the stone was freed from its long, sandy incarceration. We had stumbled upon the Franklin Delano Roosevelt National Monument, a relic of yet another self-important empire crumpled to dust amid a backdrop of stars. The words of the 32nd President of the United States chiseled into the stone were testament to a moment of lucidity during an age of madness:

MEN AND NATURE MUST WORK HAND IN HAND. THE THROWING OUT OF BALANCE OF THE RESOURCES OF NATURE THROWS OUT OF BALANCE ALSO THE LIVES OF MEN.

We took it under advisement over glowing embers and an iron pot of hot broth.

FDR Monument

Two years earlier, Appalachia, 2183

A searing wind howled outside the shelter, whistling through lifeless canyons. Flashes of light were faintly visible through leaden walls 3 feet thick, underscoring the severity of the worst lightstorm in years. It seemed a shame to squander the opportunity of not having to breathe through a Best-pirator. What should have been a brief moment’s respite, was nothing less than sheer terror. The temperature outside was two thousand degrees with higher spikes. The Appalachian ridgelines were holding methane mist like a canyon traps fireplace smoke. The lightning struck only occasionally, and several times we thought it was over. The impatient among us carelessly left the shelter too soon, and a half dozen so far had saved their families the trouble of cremation.

Perhaps thirty of us lay prone on the floor of the ancient one-room fallout shelter built just prior to the final act of the industrial revolution. Legend has it that it all came down to a glitch on a NORAD computer screen and the rest is post-history. Few were the maps marking the exact locations of these shelters, strewn about the P.A.W. I certainly didn’t have one; only a chance meeting with an extraordinary stranger alerted me to its existence.  Most were destroyed by wanderers who committed them to memory. Once the lightstorms begin, the occupants don’t open the door unless it’s to let some poor soul out. There are plenty of filters inside, but little food or water, and everyone stays quite still to conserve energy.

It seemed such a bleak existence for so once-great a race. Dressed in gray, with our breathing and drinking limited to what could be had through a filter, dodging horrific post-natural weather events, hoarding supplies and then scrounging for more. There were no children. Most of our bodies were so saturated with emergent contaminants that babies born alive were always badly deformed.

And just when we thought it was the end, this strange traveler arrived to say it was only the beginning.

Lightning hadn’t struck for over an hour, and we thought we’d heard the sound of geese passing high above. “Let me out”, demanded a man brandishing some sort of explosive device- “Let me out-now!” He got no argument and the heavy doors were rolled aside, revealing a barren world where heated rocks created a shimmer on the horizon. The man exited with not a backward glance and the doors were begun to roll back into place. As they hurtled the final inch toward each other, they slammed shut on the end of a walking pole, thrust between them at the last instant! “Hold,” came a voice from outside. The doors automatically bounced back open, and the man who had left came stumbling back in, with no small amount of help from the dusty jack-boot of a tall, sullen-eyed stranger.

“Close!” he shouted after entry, and the mighty doors rolled closed once again, this time tightly.

“Who dares?” growled the stumbling man, “Who-“

“I dare!” returned the stranger, motioning him to be seated. Angry at his forced return, the man threw his explosives aside and went for the stranger’s throat, snarling and spitting.  Then came the loudest of reports outside- lightning, followed by the rolling, rumbling thunder of another lightstorm. With wide eyes, the man released his grip and slid down the stranger’s body, finally kneeling at his feet. “I’ll not harm he who saved my life”, he spoke.

 “Rise,” said the stranger, motioning once again for all to be seated. As the lights of doom flashed outside and the stench of burning gases wafted through the shelter, the tall man stood before us staff in hand, relating a story that brought laughter to some, disbelief to others- and hope to five of us.

 He said his name was Robert C. Christian, and he was a priest. Not a priest in the archaic sense. He was the last of an order of time-guides known as the Avatale. With one foot in Earth’s far future and one in its remote past, Avatale were like custodians, charged with keeping a planet’s history moving toward the balance sought by the Universe. They did so by burrowing through space time, avoiding the restrictions of causality. “Avatale behave no differently than sub atomic particles” he said, “but rather than ponder the mechanics, let us concentrate on the message.”

Most of the shelters occupants had written the stranger off as a travel weary madman with a messiah complex, but five of us sat close, cross legged and hungry for any glimmer of hope. Hell, we were all travel weary madmen.

“What is that message?” asked one of the group that would come to be our small band of travelers.

“That you are not meant to be roaches, living in darkness and scattering in light. You are the stuff of stars, each thought, a quasar, every heartbeat in rhythm with the pulsar.”

I looked at the floor, trying to feeling more like a star and less like a refugee-in-rags. “Where did-“

“Where did it all go wrong?” he finished for me. “You sought heaven even as you trampled one beneath your feet. You gazed outward for meaning, when meaning resides only within. Your search for heavenly perfection was futile, for it was there you always did dwell.”

The simple explanation the Avatale offered up resonated with our small group, even if the majority listened with closed ears, saw with closed eyes and lay silent. We asked what there was that such a small number of people could do to heal the world.

“It is not for such as you to heal a planet, with more waters than you could swim, more ground than you could stride. Yours is to mend a relationship with a planet, and your own spirit- to build a new society on a different path with a higher purpose.”

“How do we rebuild without following our fathers over a precipice?” it was asked.

“Journey southward to the land of rocks. At 34.2 degrees north latitude, 82.9 degrees west longitude, great granite walls sit on a hilltop capped with stone. There you shall find guides to the new world you seek.”

That was the last time we ever saw the Avatale- but our band of adventurers was born and we had a mission, coordinates, -and hope.

Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, 2185

‘Great birds fly over Chesapeake Bay, where a new world dawns every month of May

Five brave men in two canoes, -which tomorrow will they choose?

To read the wisdom in the stones, that rise above thy fathers bones,

a sacred journey you must make, where Savannah River meets Keeowee Lake’

 

Dance to the Apocalypse, ‘End of the Beginning’

We stood on the shore of the Potomac gazing toward Chesapeake Bay. From this point on, travel was best done by river. I was sure FDR, -whoever he was- would understand if we felled one of the tall White Birches standing guard over his monument, if for a good cause. And rebuilding a world was good cause. We lay the tree down like an Indian bride, and removed her bark the same way. The scouts performed an age-old magic show, turning the white bark inside out, lacing it up with sweet grass and patching the rough spots with pitch the rest of us had gone about collecting. In a day, we had two Birch Bark Algonquin canoes. They were laced up tight, looking for all the world like a skillfully crafted pair of moccasins. We loaded what supplies we had and walked them to deeper water at sunrise. By the time the sun was straight overhead, it was 4 miles to shore on either side, with not a ripple to be seen. The quiet was broken only by the occasional call of big birds high overhead, or the splash of fish playing tag in the estuary. This was the way to travel.

The weather held fast as we made our way through the Chesapeake system, which finally left us, like babes in a basket, on the porch of the sometimes hostile Atlantic Ocean. Many were the nights we came to shore, backs aching, to steal a bit of slumber, uninterrupted by salt water mosquitoes and the constant rolling of the water. Lightstorms were always a threat. When the opportunity presented itself, we navigated inland on nameless waterways, where Spanish moss and sometimes snakes decorated overhanging limbs.

A hundred times we stumbled ashore, having run out of creek. And a hundred times we wore those canoes like long hats, carrying them through thickets, searching for the next waterway. We came out of the woods into a great inland expanse of water, and I could tell it was not of nature, but a thing of man. An army of trees pressed to the edge of the waters entire wide expanse, with nary a reed, sedge, bamboo or papyrus to be seen. This was a reservoir, fed by rivers whose swollen confluence lay inundated deep below. But those submerged rivers were only side streets that merged with the main highway. We had found her- the Savannah River.    

South Carolina 2186

Our canoes cut swiftly and quietly through the clear moving waters of the Savannah. Her banks were lined with cypress and willow, and she wore a bright blue sky above. The scouts rowed with their heads down, speaking back in Algonquin to the Cherokee spirits they heard calling to them from the banks. We were being warned, they signed to me- warned of great fireflies living beneath the water. These fireflies grew angry in the summer months when the river was at her lowest level and we might know the angry beasts when we came between two white waters. I took this to mean there was a danger, and decided if we saw a second set of rapids, it would be a time for portage. I cupped my hands and blew the call of the owl to the Guards up ahead, who were already entering white water. They looked back and nodded, signaling they understood some danger may be about. We kept one eye ahead, and one eye on the swift water.

 An hour later all turbulence subsided as we came upon the confluence of yet two more ancient rivers, drowned far below. The sky began to paint the river a late-afternoon turquoise, creating a lovely, but opaque surface. Dusk rode in on a chilly breeze, and though white water could not be seen ahead, it could be heard.  

We stopped rowing the canoes and sat up alert. Without turning, the scout up front signaled a flat hand, but we were already paying acute attention to the strange submarine lights flashing before us that were getting brighter by the second. I felt the canoe vibrate on my buttocks and saw a world of fear in my own reflection as I peered hard through the water beneath us. We were at the confluence of the Keeowee and Little Rivers, where the Oconee Nuclear Power Stations’ three reactors still sat humming nearly three hundred feet below. No one had ever shut them down! Keeping our paddles tilted upward, we let the fast moving water carry us over the ethereal maelstrom that was surely releasing radiation. Schools of fish moved through broad beams of light emanating from the deep. The entire lake pulsated to the soulless rhythm of doomsday machinery- a satanic concert in a watery hell, being conducted by long dead energy industry officials, still assuring the ghosts of a drowned city that everything was under control, and going to be fine.

The deep clear water was hot to the touch, and many strange life forms darted about, most notably a large Octofish that swam up alongside the canoe. Octofish were an example of mutants common to the new American southeast, most being large predators. A descendant of the sturgeon, these animals were as intelligent as they were dangerous. They used bioluminescence to communicate in a complex language of lights and colors.

Each canoe was 9 feet long and the Octofish was longer still, sizing us up with bowling ball eyes. Backlit from below, it switched off for a moment, allowing itself to become a long-tentacled silhouette. It faded back in as a golden color, its transparent body causing the internal organs to look like bugs trapped in amber. In a mesmerizing display, it went completely clear, then amber, then a rich blue, then green, and finally a very menacing red, when the canoe did not respond in kind. An attack was imminent and we began to poke at it with our paddles. It was like attacking a dragon with a fly swatter. A second creature joined in and was attacked by the first, allowing us time to put our paddles to better use. Aided by the evening breeze at our backs, we were soon across the lake and the otherworldly humming began to fade into the distance. Anxious to leave the bizarre nightmare behind us, we paddled in unison until we reached the second rapids, which led us around a bend and back onto the Savannah River.     

Huntington Beach, California, 1997

I parked the old ’75 Chevy Titan motor home out front of the Post Office just long enough to run in and get my mail from PO Box 373. But before taking off, I decided to make two stops in one, and grabbed a hot cup of java at the Starbucks on Main Street. Returning to the RV, I fumbled through my pockets for my keys and discovered they were nowhere to be found. I searched the Post Office, under the seats of the rig, and even went across the street to check Starbucks, but dammit- never did find those keys. Out came the locksmith guy who charged me an arm and a leg to do it, but I was soon on my merry way, with a whole new set of keys for a whole new ignition. I was getting coffee the next morning when someone handed me the old key set. They were found during an after-hours mopping. I must have dropped them and kicked them under the counter.  

Sylvania Georgia, 1958

One crisp February evening in 1958, Major Howard Richardson was piloting a B-47 Stratojet Bomber off the coast of Georgia at 36,000 feet. The jet was carrying an MK-15 Thermonuclear Hydrogen Bomb, 100 times more powerful than the A-Bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. What was supposed to be a routine night-training mission turned anomalous when the bomber collided with an F-86 Saberjet, destroying the fighter plane, and damaging the wing of the B-47. Major Richardson radioed for instructions and was told to jettison the H-Bomb before attempting an emergency landing. The pilot did as he was told, releasing the bomb into the shallow waters just off the coast from the mouth of the Savannah River. A massive search was undertaken to recover the errant weapon; troops searched the salt marshes, divers plumbed the depths, even a blimp joined in and searched by air, but dammit- they never did find that bomb. The search was officially called off 68 days later, on April 16^th, 1958. The Hydrogen Bomb still sits out there somewhere, perhaps one day to be found by a man in headphones, scanning the beach with his metal detector.

Apocalypse, conclusion

Elberton, Georgia, 2186-

On the Georgia bank of the Savannah River, logs were visible strewn all about the shoreline. Some were quite large and carried a strange glow. They began entering the river, and it dawned on me- these weren’t logs, but Radigators. They lay in ambush, waiting to invite us to dinner- as guests of honor. These were not like your pet Caiman or Monitor lizard- these were mature Georgia ‘gators turned radioactive, likely by living in the river of the haunted fireflies. Measuring 15 feet long, and weighing two thousand pounds, the glowing behemoths came straight for us as we approached. Using one of their own tactics against them, we decided to feign lethargy. We paddled in slowly, and before they reached us, we accelerated through and past them. Having caught them off guard, we made it ashore before they came about and we grabbed our gear while still dragging the canoes. After hauling the birch barks clear of the water, we pulled them up a bit farther, knowing that the Savannah this far south was tidal.

Now moving on foot, we rested only after hiking more than a mile inland. We pitched camp beneath a canopy of Cypress that had once again come to define the character of the Georgia swamp. Even a mile inland, we had to make sure our campfire was stoked with wood. If we allowed it to burn down to glowing embers, it could attract curious Radigators, seeking out their own. And we weren’t the only ones who knew it; several other campfires burned brightly in the distance! Who could they be? There was an undercurrent of excitement- we were very close to our destination in the land of stones. Taking turns on watch, we all slept well for the first time in weeks.

The next morning

The sun shone brightly on the tree tops that held a cacophony of birdsong. Smoke from freshly doused fires rose in many places and we heard the sounds of muffled conversation. Our campfire was still aflame and we buried it with heaps of sand, sending a plume of smoke skyward to mingle with the others. The sound of crashing in the woods nearby brought us all to our feet, and we stood ready for anything. Anything turned out to be a young woman carrying an armful of water jugs, apparently headed to the river. She was dressed in tightly fitting animal skins and her own skin was painted in bright colors. We stood completely still, not wanting to spook her, and even averted our gazes to show we meant no harm. She nodded in our direction and continued on by.

We wondered if she was a one of the local peoples- and if she were alone. By now, we were completely packed and ready to continue. The guards were mulling over the set of coordinates the Avatale had marked for us on papyrus paper back in the lightstorms of Appalachia. They read: 34.2 degrees North latitude 82.9 degrees West longitude. Our compass showed we were headed in the right direction and so we began to take the final steps of a so far harrowing journey. Once again, there was a crashing through the woods, this time two men appeared at the edge of the clearing, dark skinned, and dressed in white flowing robes, with head gear to match. Their hats wore tails that covered their necks, and it was obvious to me they were from somewhere else. One carried a machete, the other jugs for water, and again, they seemed headed for the river. The Guards reflexively brandished their swords, and I raised a hand to stop them. The foreign traveler in white robes then held his machete high, and in an exaggerated motion, dropped it to the ground, smiling. The Guards looked at me, I nodded to them, and they let fall the two large swords, which clanged together on the ground.

The painted woman came walking back through camp, handed us all a jug of water, and motioned for us to follow her. I produced the papyrus, and showed them all the coordinates scribbled on the paper. This started them all talking in several languages, and I joined in with yet another, until the woman held up her hand, and we all fell silent. She then pulled a large hunting knife from a scabbard on her ankle, causing us to step back. She sliced away her deer skin sleeve, and showed us a faded old tattoo on her arm that read: 34N 89W. The men in white robes nodded and began chattering excitedly. She turned into the woods and we all followed single file.

Once known as Elberton County, the area had been known in previous centuries for its plentiful mineral deposits, most notably for having the highest quality Blue Granite in the entire world. Considering the longevity of such stone, it came as no surprise that we were walking through a countryside scattered with all manner of monuments, some educational, others simply tributes to good men, women, deeds, events and organizations. There were polished stones telling of Revolutionary war heroes, Native American tribes, parks, river ways, villages, and even the dams that drowned them. We paused a moment to drink it all in, and I found myself leaning on a polished granite stone etched with the words: ‘thanking all the heroes of all the wars’. It went on to list the Revolutionary War, the Spanish American War, the Civil War, Korean War, World War One, World War Two, the Vietnam War, the First War in Iraq, the Second War in Iraq, the War in Afghanistan, and World War Three. But of course, the big one was conspicuously absent, there having been no person, agency or organization left to carve a monument.  

I shook my head at what we had found. It was safe to say I was dumbfounded by the dumb we had founded. How many lives, families, potential cures, kids and Kings had we snuffed beneath the futile fog of war? It could be read on the walls of canyons as well as in the inscriptions in Blue Granite; we went from clubbing each other with Mammoth bones to clubbing each other with Hydrogen Bombs, but it was really all the same thing.

We weren’t sure why we had come, but we were certain we didn’t come to rebuild a society that begins clubbing once more. As we padded through the grassy countryside, our diverse group grew ever larger and more diverse. People in all forms of dress, spoke languages we’d never heard before, and joined in the single-file procession. According to our sextant and last night’s stars, we were close. This was confirmed when the painted woman leading the procession turned and thrust a hand high in the air. She whispered into the ear of another brightly painted woman now standing beside her. The woman translated, saying, “Halt”, and then repeated the word in 7 more languages. Our procession shuffled to a stop. She whispered into her translator’s ear once again, who repeated, “We are here”.

Seeing nothing, there was a clamor among us made of many angry voices. But the painted women turned away and climbed over a last rise, motioning us to follow. As we crested the final hill, we came upon a small group of strangely clad men, all of different races. They stood together on a large flat granite slab, each dressed in the different holy garb of their own tribe. The tallest was a Nubian Chief, who stood beside a wrinkled red man wearing a headpiece that trailed eagle feathers to the granite below. They each stood with an arm outstretched, pointing away into the distance.

And there, on the next hilltop, worn from the weather, the lightstorms and the centuries, stood the Georgia Guide stones. The procession was no longer single file or orderly, but there was no stampede. We walked through a small dip and came up the hillside toward the 20 foot tall blocks of polished Blue Granite that carried –in many languages- the 10 guiding principles that might lead to a better world for all of us.

Many different tribes from far flung lands sat in groups, dotting the hills surrounding the Guide stones, reading, translating and discussing the wisdom behind each word. An enormous line of abalone shells encircled the monument, some smoking with burning sage, others with sacred cedar, and still others smelling of all the ancient spices and incense of a world gone by –and one yet to come. Peace pipes filled with sacred tobacco were passed from hand to hand, as elderly she-shaman spread cornmeal at the feet of new arrivals. Marijuana, Frankincense, cypress, rosemary- every treat for the senses wafted in and around the gathered throngs, all here to not only mark the beginning of a new world, but the peaceful, spiritual conclusion of the old one.

The celebration continued until high noon, when solsticial sunbeams pierced through a hole in the gargantuan capstone, striking a precise mark within the Guidestones. In the distance, a single gong sounded, its ring sustaining for a long, meditative moment.

On the next hilltop, the collected tribal chiefs spoke to the painted translator, who repeated their words in seven languages. In English, she said, “Only the bold, only the strong, have made this journey. Some died along the way. But a new world begins as the sun strikes its mark through the stone. Now take the words from these stones, and etch them forever onto the stone that beats within your chest.

 

As the gathered masses considered the 10 Guides in the stones, they also considered each other. Each face searched every other, each smile waited for another. Spirits rose along with the sweet scent of burning, smoky medicine. And when each hand had reached out and was taken, hope spread like the seeds of a dandelion to the four corners of the Earth, from a Blue Granite miracle that had withstood an age of madness, and ushered in an age of reason.

joey racano

 11 28 09

 

  The Georgia Guide stones, origin unknown

 

our founder

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This entry was posted on Sunday, November 29th, 2009 at 03:50 and is filed under Poetry, Business, Environment, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.