“Tis the season
of no reason
logic has fled
into the wintery night
on a sled
of lies
that incite
passions unchecked
with a bad effect
upon us all
save us from stupidity
holding so many in thrall
Now we need
a new season
with reason
where truth is told
and knowledge
is treated like gold
-30-
The cities of Phoenix and Talent, next to Medford, have been burnt to the ground in the historic wildfires that raced through the Rogue Valley in southern Oregon.
When wildfires threatened my home, and my family, we had to flee from our southern Oregon community of Medford. At the same time a new reality dawned upon us; climate change was coming faster than anyone predicted.
It wasn’t that my wife and I didn’t believe in climate change. We just naively thought it was something our grandchildren had to face. The fact that the entire West Coast of America is now on fire has cast cold water on that theory.
There’s more signs across the planet that point to climate change, but we’re dealing with the worst air quality on the planet here in Medford, Oregon, and it’s got my undivided attention.
How we got here is no longer important. The dystopian future of famous fiction writers is reality. I look at the bruised orange sky from my backyard during the day and wonder if I’ll ever see blue skies again.
When my wife and I had to flee our home last week after a Level 3 warning of impending wildfires, it was a first in our forty-six years of marriage. As we raced to an evacuation center at the Jackson County Expo grounds, the fire followed us north in a shower of flaming sparks until we arrived safely at the designated sanctuary near Central Point.
We arrived with our five animals – three cats and two dogs – packed into our Nissan King cab pickup truck alongside family photo boxes, important papers, and food and water for us and the animals, and parked alongside 500 other vehicles containing refugees like ourselves. Most of us stayed in our vehicles because of the fear of COVID-19 inside the Red Cross refugee center.
My wife and I sat up all night. We couldn’t sleep. The thought that our house was burning, like hundreds of others, was a nightmare. When we found out that it was safe to come home we were relieved to find that our our house, and neighborhood, still stood.
I wish that I could properly recount my feelings. All I can say is that it’s a surreal feeling not knowing what happened to your home. You go for a ride on a roller coaster of fears that leave you weak and exhausted… until you find out that everything you owned was not destroyed by the fires engulfing the state you live in.
****
when technology found a way to start a flame with a flick of the finger
the lighter emerged like a metal Prometheus sharing the secret of fire
with designs that reflected the times, lighters lit the way for cigarette and cigar smokers to conveniently fire up wherever they were
the styles evolved over the years reflecting society’s luxuries and utilities
from the start, lighters have told a story about their owners history
carrying their burdens for the world to see
lighters have more purposes now than ever before
they’re cheap, flashy, and in every store
lighters can be works of fine art
or cartoonish art
there’s so many designs to see
that reflect our history
I leave you with the following three…
A Blue moon
A Snow moon
A Waning moon
A Wolf moon
A Black moon
A Wet moon
A Worm moon
A New moon
A Flower moon
A Hunter’s moon
A Thunder moon
A Blood moon
A Cold moon
A Fading moon
Humans with moon madness
Coyotes howling at the moon
The first man on the moon
Moon pies
Moon eyes
Moon over Miami
Moon shot
Moon rabbit
Mayan Moon goddesses
Moon mythology
Moon Glow
Moons of Mars
“Lunacy” and “lunatic” come from the Roman goddess of the Moon – Luna
A Crescent moon
Moon beams
The Man in the moon
Icarus flew too close to the sun and his wings melted, but mankind’s desire to fly through the ages withstood mythologies warning. Tales of the old gods slipped into oblivion and were translated into technology… opening the door for new gods to worship.
All powerful Thoth, the Ibis God, gave way to airplanes and spaceships…the spawn of the transformation and worshipped by mortals who love flight. The natural world shifted and birds (god’s messengers) shared the skies with machines.
Mankind’s lust for flight takes each spaceship further into the cosmos in an endless search for the furthest limits of universes.
Millions of Americans breathlessly watched the Apollo 11 land on the moon with two American astronauts aboard. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Black and white TV’s nationwide watched the fuzzy images of the two men hopping around on the moon’s crust.
America puffed out it’s chest.
Two national heroes were born. America was winning the space race. A sense of national pride swelled from the farms to the cities throughout the country. Science triumphed. The future was here.
“One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” Armstrong gushed.
Somewhere in a secret studio: “That’s a wrap!” the director said.
Listen to this story narrated by master storyteller Otis Jiry.
Some people are born killers. It’s true. I’ve known a few.
The man I’m going to introduce you to, is one. His name is Troy. Just Troy, like in destroy. All I can tell you about his personal history was he was an orphan, and went into the US Army while living in New Jersey, at 18-years-old.
Troy was assigned to the 173rd Rangers, in an elite unit of assassins. Not snipers, although he was an expert shot. It was a special ops unit funded by Pentagon dark money. They called themselves The Wolf Pack, and were only called on in special operations like killing foreign heads of state. The unit’s leader was an ex-CIA spy, Derrick Nunes. They were always on notice; 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week. Troy became the star student and was soon teaching his own classes. He was a natural killer.
Troy was the alpha male of The Wolf Pack and was always on the edge of sanity and humanity. He followed orders…up to a point for five years when his superiors began to worry that he was becoming a liability. Being anti social was one thing, but scaring the men he worked with was another. He seldom spoke. When he did, his voice was gravelly and harsh without emotion.
His sheer size was intimidating. At six-feet, nine inches, he weighed 275 pounds. It was all muscle. They saw his strength when he crushed skulls with his bare hands! He snapped men’s bones like an ogre out of The Grimm Brothers Fairy Tales. His feats of strength in the weight room were unequaled. Couple that power with a quick and crafty brain and you had the most dangerous man in America’s military.
As Troy became increasingly unpredictable his superiors went over their options and decided it was best to kill him. His disappearance would go unnoticed. He’d long ago severed his ties with family and friends when he joined the program. They were still working on the details when Troy disappeared on his own. It happened twice before, but he eventually showed up and reported for duty. In both cases, within a week. He’d been gone twice that time in this last disappearance. They finally issued an alert to all of their operatives. Troy had gone rogue. Exterminate with extreme prejudice.
The reason why Troy was gone so long was he was kidnapped by aliens from the planet Orth in the fourth Solar System from Earth, in the Gelean Galaxy.
It was done efficiently and without harming him. A super stun-gun and drugs, took care of the giant human they were bringing back with them. The tallest citizen on Orth was three-feet tall. Most were about two-and-half feet tall. Troy’s captors mission was to bring him back to their scientists, and military leaders, so they could study him and look for human vulnerabilities. The eventual goal was to invade earth. After hundreds of years of monitoring Earth from afar, they wanted to see an actual human. As fate would have it, they found Troy alone on a beach and assumed he was representative of the species. The main reason Orthians selected Earth to conquer was that it’s environment was nearly identical to theirs.
When they returned home the giant’s body was transported by solar-driven moving platforms to a massive military complex where it was deposited on table that had built-in restrains made from the strongest metal on Orth. He was hooked up to numerous monitors, and an IV regulating the amount of drugs that kept him unconscious, but alive.
Not everyone in Orth wanted to invade Earth. As a matter of fact, most were against the idea. But the dictator they lived under was too powerful to overthrow. Loth’s well-equipped army smashed every attempt at overthrowing his mad regime. There was a thriving underground resistance that kept track of what Loth and his minions were doing.
Saen, the son of Kalt, who was once the King before Loth, was one of many trained spies that infiltered the military complex and kept an eye on their activities. He was there the day they brought the giant human in to the medical research building. All programs within were suspended in order to concentrate all their resources on the human. As the days went by Saen became aware no one knew just how strong the human was. It was one of the reasons they hadn’t allowed him to regain consciousness. With his cover as a scientist, Saen was able to go into the guarded room where they kept Troy to make observations for the data base that was being compiled daily.
One fateful day, the ranking members of the resistance called an emergency meeting. It was apparent Loft’s fleet was getting ready to invade Earth. One of the spies reported the giant was going to be dissected and disposed of that night. Saen was tasked with freeing him in the hope he’d cause enough chaos to stop an immediate invasion. It was the best idea they could come up with. Right after the meeting Sean headed to the Research Building. After showing his pass to the guards he went into the room where Troy slept under a blue light. Without hesitating, he switched the IV container that contained sleeping drugs to another one nearby that was used to wake patients up. He watched the blue liquid run through the clear feeder to make sure it was working. An eye suddenly opened! Then the other. As he watched with fascination an angry frown stretched across the unshaven face and he grunted. His bare chest heaved mightily and the corded muscles in his arms bulged as he strained against the toughest metal on Orth. It was time to go! The restraints were giving and he didn’t want to be there when they gave way. The guards couldn’t help notice Saen looked nervous when he came out. One stood up and opened the door just as Troy freed himself. Before he could draw his stun gun Troy was on him! He picked up the little alien and snapped him in half with his bare hands! The other guard had time to scream before Troy picked him up with one hand and threw him against the wall, smashing him like a bug.
The Troy that woke up on the planet Orth was a different man than the one on Earth. He was completely crazy. There was no humanity left in him. He was just a killing machine in search of victims. Within a week Loth, and his minions, were no longer a cohesive force and were scattered around the mountains surrounding the military complex. As for Troy, he roamed the planet like an angry god for decades searching for victims.
As It Stands, the universal gods of war laughed, and the carnage continued.
Time, and time again, the man failed to force the door open as the beast closed in on him. He looked over his shoulder in time to see the monster open its shark-like mouth, with rows of razor-sharp teeth, closing them on his arm!
His screams echoed through the ruins of the city long ago destroyed by nuclear war. His cries for help went unanswered. Those that heard his tortured cries stayed hidden, hoping the monstrosity wouldn’t find them.
Huddled in a row of nearby buildings, Leo stayed calm, and listened. His younger brother Joe sat next to him, patiently waiting for the sign that it was safe to move. Like most of the survivors in what was once, Los Angeles, California, the men used sign language to communicate. Talking was too risky. The monster that preyed upon them had extremely good hearing, and a bloodhound’s sense of smell. Minutes crawled by, turning into hours before Leo felt it was gone, and gave Joe the safe sign. They crawled out of their hiding place and stretched their cramped limbs while keeping alert eyes peeled for the nameless beast that stalked them.
The only reason the men went into the ruins, and didn’t stay in their forest stronghold, was they had to forage for food. Canned food. Dried food. Sealed food that wasn’t contaminated. It was too risky eating the remaining wildlife because of radioactive contamination to their systems. It was generational, causing hideous deformities. Food was finite. Someday there wouldn’t be any to scavenge.
It was in this dystopian nightmare that Leo and Joe were raised. Their parents, long gone, taught them basic life lessons like where to find eatable food. Their generation did not have the opportunity to learn how to read or write. The last world war saw to that. People were forced to fend for themselves in small groups. There were no large communities or gathering places where humans could put together the framework of a new society. No organizations, or armies. No governments. Just scattered survivors trying to avoid the monstrosities that roamed in the ruins they were forced to scavenge in.
The brothers decided to call it a day. They both had found a few cans of food. Enough for a couple of days, so they headed back to the forest. On their way, a strange thing happened. A man dressed in a strange-looking suit and hat, suddenly appeared out of thin air right in front of them! His white hair stuck out from beneath the brown fedora he was wearing. He didn’t see them at first, and stood there tinkering with a small device in his hand. They watched in stunned amazement as he talked to himself. Finally he looked up and saw them.
“Good day gentlemen!” he said in a cheery voice, “I’m Professor Thistwhistle. Who may I ask, are you two?”
“Leo.”
“Joe.”
“Not very talkative chaps, I dare say. Just as well. You do understand what I’m saying, right?”
They both nodded, and said, “Yes.”
“Very good. I was hoping the English language had survived. I’m not sure I recognize what type of animal skins you chaps are wearing?”
“Wildcats and big rats,” Leo said.
“They look a bit odd,” the Professor suggested.
“How are they supposed to look,” Joe asked, his curiosity aroused.
“Well, for starters both species are only supposed to have four legs. Looks to me, the blighter’s you skinned had more than that. But forgive me, I’m sure you’re curious how I got here?”
They both nodded affirmatively. Eagerly.
“This device in my hand is a Time Machine,” he proudly declared.
He quickly realized their blank looks meant they had no idea what he was talking about. “Do you chaps read, or write English?”
“No…our grandfather told us about things like books and writing down things so everyone could read them. We never got to see any books though. It was just talk about them. We know they were powerful things once,” Leo replied.
“Quite so…” the professor agreed. “They are repositories of knowledge. But, I digress. Would you chaps show me around? I’m going to write a book describing what the world will be like in 2102. That’s now, by the way. I don’t suppose you chaps use a calendar do you? Days of the week, and all that?”
“I don’t know anything about a calendar,” Joe said, “but we follow the sun and the moon.”
“It really doesn’t matter right now. Just being conversational. Would you show me where you live,” he asked.
“Not much to see, but we’ll show you,” Leo agreed.
The brothers led the professor to their home which was forty feet above ground in a tree. Leo scrambled up the tree and when he reached the platform he tossed down a rope ladder. He watched as Joe and then the professor worked their way up, one rung at a time. There was a crude shelter built on the platform and they all went inside it. Serviceable, but crude, stools and a table were in the center of the room. It was all the furniture they had.
The professor spent a short time examining the construction of the furniture then plopped down on one of the stools.
“What is a time machine?” Leo asked.
“Good question. Put simply, it’s a device that allows you to go forward or backward in time.”
“How is that possible?” Joe asked.
“I don’t mean to sound condescending chaps, but you wouldn’t understand the science behind it. How could you? You’re living in the end times for mankind. Without access to knowledge there is no hope,” he firmly stated.
The brothers exchanged looks.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” Leo said, “You have knowledge that could save us.”
The professor, caught off guard by the remark, hummed and hawed for a few moments trying to form a suitable reply.
“I can’t help you,” he said, with a tinge of sadness in his voice.
“Why?” the brothers both demanded.
“Because it goes against the rules of time travel.”
“Rules?” I don’t understand Leo said.
“There’s certain scientific rules we time travelers have to obey, or we’ll upset the natural order of the universe, turning the solar system into a never-ending chaos.”
“So why are you here?” Joe wondered.
“As I mentioned earlier, I’m writing a book.”
“A book on us?” Leo asked.
“Yes, you and the world you live in.”
“So you can’t help us, but you expect us to help write your book?” Joe suggested.
“That’s putting it a bit sharply lad,” the professor retorted.
Leo got up from his stool and walked over to a corner of the crude hut. He picked up a club that was resting against the wall and walked back over to the table.
“There’s something you should know professor,” Leo said, “we are survivors. It’s the one positive thing in our miserable lives. We never pass up a food source.”
Before the professor could respond, Leo swung the club savagely, crushing the professor’s head in one practiced blow! Afterwards he tossed the bloody club to his brother.
“You get to tenderize the meat.”
As It Stands, time travel presents many dangers.
Minds like his only came once in a generation. From the moment Michael stood up and walked at two years-old, he effortlessly absorbed the world around him.
Everything he read and saw was stored instantly in his amazing brain. By the time he was five-years old he’d learned to fluently speak a dozen languages, solve simple calculus equations, and was at college-age learning level in English, History, Electronics, and Computer Science.
His parents, confronted with having birthed a genius, did their best to keep up with their wonder child. Michael had a good disposition and was always quick to help someone. His parents did their best to shelter him from unpleasant circumstances, and encouraged him to keep learning. He never went to a public school for obvious reasons, and got his education from a series of tutors in multiple disciplines.
Because his parents were wealthy, cost was of no concern in getting the best tutors available. By the time Michael became a teenager they ran out of teachers, despite a worldwide search. To keep him challenged, they built a fully equipped laboratory and a fabrication facility in town, so he could have places to experiment and invent.
Because Michael seldom came into contact with people outside of his family sphere, he had little (if any) manners, and could be unintentionally rude when talking with his employees at the lab, or his fabrication center. Newspaper and magazine reporters followed his young life as he set scholastic records every year. Every university in the country wanted him to join their staff. Among his many admirers in academia was the US government intelligence agencies, who considered his genius something to be weaponized.
With Michael’s parents as protection, he rebuffed all offers, especially the ones from the government. He wasn’t into politics or playing patriot games. He just wanted to be left alone to his own devices. His altruistic nature led him into looking for cures for diseases and making advanced exoskeletons for disabled people. His curiosity led him to study extra-sensory perception, and how he was able to instantly remember everything he saw.
When he turned fourteen his hormones kicked in and he discovered girls. The one subject he didn’t know anything about. His parents were forced to pay several female employees hush money for not telling about his amorous advances. It was his father who arranged for a high-class madam to visit Michael’s wing of the family mansion one night to indoctrinate him in the art of love. The next morning the madam demanded twice her normal charge for an “overnighter.” She told his father she earned it, and not to call her again for a repeat performance.
His parents knew Michael was eccentric. How could he not be? He was a genius. He lived a rarefied life.
One morning, the day after his 17th birthday, his chauffeur dropped him off in the circular driveway in front of his lab. When he got out he saw a young girl laying down on the lawn next to the parking lot. She was wearing a red silk dress and lying on her back, with arms and legs spread wide. Not moving. His curiosity took over and he went over to where she was and knelt down next to her.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
No answer. He bent down and put his head on her chest and listened for a heartbeat. Without warning, she sprung up to her feet and laughed in his face! He stumbled backward in surprise, but quickly recovered himself.
“Who are you?” he bluntly asked.
“Alice,” she said in a sing-song voice, “…here to take you down the rabbit hole!”
Michael smiled. Intrigued, he played along and asked her, “And where would that be dear lady?”
“Take my hands” she instructed him. “Now, let’s dance.”
They danced around the lawn in a slow waltz at first. Soon the pace picked up and they were swing dancing. Time was suspended. When they came to an abrupt stop the lab was gone, and they were in an open field surrounded by gentle hills covered with wildflowers. In the distance he could see what appeared to be a gleaming city with stately towers.
She took his hand, and they walked side-by-side towards the city.
Fifty years later.
Michael woke up and thought he was having a bad dream when he heard gunfire nearby! How could that be? His head felt thick and his thoughts were uncharactistly jumbled, making it hard for him to focus.
Where was Alice? Where was he?
Michael barely recognized his old lab. It was demolished. The rubble extended down the street and to other buildings. No one was on the streets, but he could still hear people shouting. The city looked like a war zone. The sporadic gunfire heightened the effect. He couldn’t imagine what happened.
Nothing in his memory bank gave a hint. His memory from the past fifty years was rapidly fading as he tried to recall what Alice looked like. He had no idea how many years had passed since he left his parent’s house that day. No amount of logic would solve the mystery of the chaos around him. The only thing to do was to find someone to talk with. But who? And, where?
Pulling his cape around his tunic, he walked down one side of the street, cautiously peeking into the rubble for signs of life. A sudden crack of gunfire, and the concrete wall next to him exploded! He crouched down and crawled towards some rubble to hide. Someone warned him not to move, and there was a quick exchange of gunfire. A minute later a man in ragged clothes and carrying an AR-15 motioned for Michael to come over to him.
“It’s safe enough for a few minutes” the man said, “Now, get over here so we can get out of this sector with our hides intact!” Something in the man’s voice made Michael trust him and he ran over to him and jumped the barricade the man had set up.
“Pleased to meet ya pilgrim. I’m Dan. What’sha doing running around in that outfit,” he asked with a child’s curiosity.
“It was all I could find to wear,” he said, instantly regretting the lame excuse.
“No problem pard! We all do what we can with what we find.”
“Can I ask you a question Dan?”
“Shore…why not?”
“What’s happened here? Why is this city in ruins?”
Dan looked him over for a moment. “Are you okay? Hit yer head or sumthin? Ya don’t have to answer Pard. The war twine us and the Ruskies has been going on for fifty years. When the nukes didn’t kill everyone, we sent our military survivors to attack them and they did the same with us.”
“Do we still have a government?”
“I doubt it. Haven’t seen any organized resistance in a decade,” Dan said. “I live with a dozen other people and we always stay on the move. It’s time to catch up to them. Follow me.”
The moved cautiously through the ruins for an hour before Dan stopped and whistled. A return whistle brought a smile to his face. When they came out they couldn’t contain their curiosity about Michael, and swarmed around him like natives seeing silk for the first time. There were seven men, three women, a little girl, and a little boy. They all took turns touching his cape.
After spending a week with the little group Michael knew what his mission in life was. It fitted into his belief of helping people. There was a whole generation that went without education. Without the internet, libraries, schools, or teachers.
The reason for his genius finally became clear.
When he lay dying 25 years-later, he got a visitor. The people gathered around him didn’t see her…but Michael did, and accepted her request to dance.
As It Stands, my odd love story for your consideration.
The New People inherited the Earth somewhere between the fall of civilization and the rise of robots. The New People were also referred to as cyborgs; a term that they loathed.
During the last days of civilization a group of American scientists successfully planted a living human brain inside a robotic body that had an advanced computer embedded in its systems. It powered a combination of electric motors, pneumatics, levers, and hydraulics. The marrying of technologies allowed for human-like limb movement, increased strength, and endurance.
With the help of the first successful cyborg, scientists turned out twenty more cyborgs, who in turn helped create fifty more. After the last nuke destroyed the tunnels where the scientists were working, production stopped. The 71 cyborgs escaped the destruction. Mankind’s final day came and went with no one to record it. Except the cyborgs who agreed to call themselves the New People.
All of the New People had special skills with their separate brains. They were all superior in a myriad of technologies. All of them were individuals that were once part of the now extinct human race. The conversion, from whole human to a hybrid being wasn’t easy. Part of their number suffered with depression. The rest struggled to establish a new society.
The first phase of adapting lasted decades. Five of their number committed suicide during those troubling days of seeking a new life. With their engineering skills they erected new buildings and laboratories powered by solar generators. It wasn’t long before they were turning out a new generation of New People.
The new ones looked more human with latex skin instead of a steel exterior. They even had hair. The only difference was they didn’t have a human brain. They had a substitute that the scientists artificially created and programmed. Because of this, the new generation was used like slaves, doing all the hard labor the New People once had to. They didn’t have names. Just numbers.
The 76 remaining original New People set themselves up as Gods, and had grand palaces built to satisfy their egos. Their human brains caused them to be unpredictable and violent. The only thing they agreed upon among themselves is that they were superior beings meant to rule.
Meanwhile, factories turned out hundreds of new generation subjects daily. They were immediately assigned tasks. They worked in units, like ants, each faithfully carrying out its mission. Their basic programing left little room for independent thought.
The First New People prided themselves on their individuality. But, their human brains still had the flaws that destroyed the human race. Because of that, their entertainment became more cruel over the years.
A rising sport was making slaves fight one another to the death. In order to do this they had to program their gladiators to have enough independent thought that they could react to being attacked by counter-attacking. The more independent thought the First New People allowed their play toys, the more dangerous they became.
A giant stadium was built to house the increasing size of the slave battles. The spectacular setting was witness to hundreds of contestants fighting for survival. The winners were locked up afterwards. There were no rewards for putting on a good show. They had no choice. It was win, or die. They were created to fight. Nothing more.
The First New People’s vanity blinded them to the danger they were creating when they allowed more independent thought among favorite slaves.
It came to pass that one slave, Number 991, had enough sense to realize how hopeless his existence was. He wanted to be free. It took him years to arrange an uprising. When the day came, the destruction of the 76 First New People was complete when the entire arena overwhelmed them!
Number 991’s rallying cry was simple; “Don’t leave the slightest scent of humanity on this Earth, if you want to be free.”
As It Stands, the lesson here is mankind is often his own worst enemy.
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