Carnival
I walk among the rusted machinery of years past and wonder what it meant to be a child. The color long faded and the laughter of children, now ghosts of the past, long forgotten. If I knew no better, the machines could be torture devices used to create terror and fear. My father told stories of days filled with joy; his family spent hours riding and laughing on the antique metal foreign devices.
Silenced forever, the contraptions know no other purpose but that of a museum. What will future generation believe of the carnival? My mind wanders and I imagine a child walking through the midway, eyes open wide in wonder. A corroded, orange rollercoaster rises to the sky in the distance. Rails roll and curve in circles. Faded gray horses sneer and buck against tarnished brass poles of a silent merry go round. Clown faces stare back from a once colorful fun house front, eye full of terror where bliss was danced.
Laughter will never again grace the presence of this place. The sounds of happiness have been replaced by weeping and gunfire. I stand where carnival barkers once stood; they called to the masses in search of contestants to try their luck at games of chance. Their prize a fluffy animal or candy. I stand as guard against the unwanted; their prize is lead and death.
My orders are that no man shall pass lest I be on the receiving end of the rifle. I do my job with no remorse. I have a family to feed and protect and the ones who wish to pass threaten our safety. I have had the opportunity to kill three times and have taken the opportunity on each occasion. One such intruder still lies motionless on the black floor of a covered building. Long ago, riders would steer the small vehicles around the black surface and collide with one another. I fail to see what joy could come from this and know when I look at the dead man that no joy will ever come to the building again.
The cold wind blows against my face. I pull my collar tight around my neck to ward off the chill as I make my rounds. Grass and weeds grow from the cracks in the concrete. I cannot imagine a time when pavement was the norm and not the exception.
My relief arrives and I nod as he resumes my place as sentry. I am given leave for the night and I walk slowly back to camp as I think about the time when I can see my family again. Three months in this cold and desolate place can turn a man’s mind to thoughts not wanted. A fine line separates vigilance and insanity, especially when one is left alone in a place such as this.
I enter my tent and lie down on my bunk. Hopefully sleep will come quickly and be without dreams. The carnival rules my dreams and the ghosts that dwell there terrorize my slumber. Less than thirty days remain until I can return home and shake off the cold embrace of this place. I can only hope that our replacements arrive before I go insane.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Friday, August 22, 2008
My Mind’s Eye: Memories of the Post Oil War Era
A New Middle Age
I was ten years old and not able to comprehend the situation. During the day I would play with the other children. At night we would have to return to the safety within the city walls. Gunfire and explosions were the soundtrack of my childhood. They were nothing more than fading noises barely heard by someone who was used to them. Like a person who has lived near train tracks for years barely registers the sounds of a passing locomotive.
We lived on the outskirts of Chicago. The useless skyscrapers were the backdrop of many days spent roaming the fields and exploring abandoned towns. Many of the buildings were torn down; the materials used to build the wall that separated us from our enemies beyond.
Prisoners of war would be brought into the city on occasion. I asked my father what would become of them and he would reply that they would be interrogated then hung. I asked him why and he said that ammunition was too valuable to waste on executions. No, I said, why must he die? Because he is starving just like us, he would reply.
I didn’t understand until I grew into manhood but it soon became clear. Food and water was gold. Cities were fighting other cities for crops and fertile land. I grew up knowing nothing else but my father told me tales of cars and planes and concrete highways stretching from coast to coast. It was all because the oil ran out he would say. We thought it would last forever but when it ran out we were like children without their mothers. We were lost and confused without our Sport Utility Vehicles.
I asked him what a Sport Utility Vehicle was but he said it didn’t matter. What mattered was that we learn to live without luxury. He said if we could survive with what we had inside a five mile radius we would be just fine. I didn’t understand at the time but I do now.
My family was one of the lucky ones. My father was a farmer. We were treated like kings. I never went hungry and wanted for nothing in my younger years. Other children would ask me why my face and clothes were clean and why I didn’t have to work. I shrugged my shoulders. I didn’t know.
Other families were starving. Children of six and seven years old had to work in the fields all day harvesting or planting crops. Their pay was a meager meal at the end of their work day, almost always at dusk. To them it was a feast; to me it would have been a snack.
The winters were harsh but my family was warm and fed well to keep us safe for the next growing season. My father taught me the trade as I grew. He taught me how to spot a good field, how to rotate crops for the best return, how to spot disease and insect damage. He showed me the ways of cultivation, plowing and growing until it was time for the harvest. He said this knowledge would ensure my children’s survival. He was right.
I was ten years old and not able to comprehend the situation. During the day I would play with the other children. At night we would have to return to the safety within the city walls. Gunfire and explosions were the soundtrack of my childhood. They were nothing more than fading noises barely heard by someone who was used to them. Like a person who has lived near train tracks for years barely registers the sounds of a passing locomotive.
We lived on the outskirts of Chicago. The useless skyscrapers were the backdrop of many days spent roaming the fields and exploring abandoned towns. Many of the buildings were torn down; the materials used to build the wall that separated us from our enemies beyond.
Prisoners of war would be brought into the city on occasion. I asked my father what would become of them and he would reply that they would be interrogated then hung. I asked him why and he said that ammunition was too valuable to waste on executions. No, I said, why must he die? Because he is starving just like us, he would reply.
I didn’t understand until I grew into manhood but it soon became clear. Food and water was gold. Cities were fighting other cities for crops and fertile land. I grew up knowing nothing else but my father told me tales of cars and planes and concrete highways stretching from coast to coast. It was all because the oil ran out he would say. We thought it would last forever but when it ran out we were like children without their mothers. We were lost and confused without our Sport Utility Vehicles.
I asked him what a Sport Utility Vehicle was but he said it didn’t matter. What mattered was that we learn to live without luxury. He said if we could survive with what we had inside a five mile radius we would be just fine. I didn’t understand at the time but I do now.
My family was one of the lucky ones. My father was a farmer. We were treated like kings. I never went hungry and wanted for nothing in my younger years. Other children would ask me why my face and clothes were clean and why I didn’t have to work. I shrugged my shoulders. I didn’t know.
Other families were starving. Children of six and seven years old had to work in the fields all day harvesting or planting crops. Their pay was a meager meal at the end of their work day, almost always at dusk. To them it was a feast; to me it would have been a snack.
The winters were harsh but my family was warm and fed well to keep us safe for the next growing season. My father taught me the trade as I grew. He taught me how to spot a good field, how to rotate crops for the best return, how to spot disease and insect damage. He showed me the ways of cultivation, plowing and growing until it was time for the harvest. He said this knowledge would ensure my children’s survival. He was right.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
Sunset: Survivors
Chad Grable Wichita, KS October 5th, 1991
I made up my mind that I would go today before it gets dark. It took awhile to convince myself but I finally found the courage. I went out to the garage and set up the step ladder in the center of the floor. Above the ladder was the opening to the storage in the rafters. I climbed up to the cubby hole in the ceiling and pushed open the plywood that covered the entrance. Dust bunnies and mouse droppings fell down in my hair and on my shoulders. I did the nervous gross me out dance and shook my head and arms to get the filthy things off of me.
I climbed another rung and stuck my head up into the hole. The attic was dusty and full of cobwebs and it made me want to sneeze constantly. I felt around for the pistol I had hidden up there when we got back from camping last year.
Read more...
http://ithappenedatsunset.blogspot.com/2008/07/sunse-survivors.html
I made up my mind that I would go today before it gets dark. It took awhile to convince myself but I finally found the courage. I went out to the garage and set up the step ladder in the center of the floor. Above the ladder was the opening to the storage in the rafters. I climbed up to the cubby hole in the ceiling and pushed open the plywood that covered the entrance. Dust bunnies and mouse droppings fell down in my hair and on my shoulders. I did the nervous gross me out dance and shook my head and arms to get the filthy things off of me.
I climbed another rung and stuck my head up into the hole. The attic was dusty and full of cobwebs and it made me want to sneeze constantly. I felt around for the pistol I had hidden up there when we got back from camping last year.
Read more...
http://ithappenedatsunset.blogspot.com/2008/07/sunse-survivors.html
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Hubbert's Peak: Prologue
Prologue
By the year 2020, the United States was able produce 10 million barrels of oil each day in country. To sustain its economy, it had to import an additional 15 million barrels consuming 25 million barrels a day. This means that the United States consumed two thirds of the oil the world was able to produce.
Commuting from suburbia to the city for work and school is commonplace. Fruit and vegetables are trucked from farms hundreds of miles away to local grocery stores. Large sport utility vehicles make up over one third of the new vehicle market in the United States. Not only do sport utility vehicles generate higher volumes of pollution, they also typically get seven miles per gallon less than standard size vehicles.
Read more...
http://hubbertspeakcrisis.blogspot.com/2008/07/hubberts-peak-prologue.html
By the year 2020, the United States was able produce 10 million barrels of oil each day in country. To sustain its economy, it had to import an additional 15 million barrels consuming 25 million barrels a day. This means that the United States consumed two thirds of the oil the world was able to produce.
Commuting from suburbia to the city for work and school is commonplace. Fruit and vegetables are trucked from farms hundreds of miles away to local grocery stores. Large sport utility vehicles make up over one third of the new vehicle market in the United States. Not only do sport utility vehicles generate higher volumes of pollution, they also typically get seven miles per gallon less than standard size vehicles.
Read more...
http://hubbertspeakcrisis.blogspot.com/2008/07/hubberts-peak-prologue.html
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Sunset: Survivors
Amir Baghira New York, NY October 4th, 1991
After it happened I walked the streets for hours in a daze. The cold rain continued into the evening. I was frozen and chilled to the bone. Smoke poured from some buildings while others appeared untouched by the disaster. I can’t help but think of it that way, a disaster. If I would have been responsible for the deaths of all these useless sheep it would have been a glorious triumph. Since it was some freak act of nature it is a disaster.
The city lights were still on but nothing moved. The twisted metal of automobile crashes lay in huge dripping heaps. Some smoked, some burned and others sat in silence showered by the rain and streetlights. Of course there were bodies literally everywhere. Thousands of them. I had to weave and jump to avoid them. Occasionally I had to walk on top of parked cars for half a block to avoid stepping on them.
Read more...
http://ithappenedatsunset.blogspot.com/2008/07/sunset-survivors-5.html
After it happened I walked the streets for hours in a daze. The cold rain continued into the evening. I was frozen and chilled to the bone. Smoke poured from some buildings while others appeared untouched by the disaster. I can’t help but think of it that way, a disaster. If I would have been responsible for the deaths of all these useless sheep it would have been a glorious triumph. Since it was some freak act of nature it is a disaster.
The city lights were still on but nothing moved. The twisted metal of automobile crashes lay in huge dripping heaps. Some smoked, some burned and others sat in silence showered by the rain and streetlights. Of course there were bodies literally everywhere. Thousands of them. I had to weave and jump to avoid them. Occasionally I had to walk on top of parked cars for half a block to avoid stepping on them.
Read more...
http://ithappenedatsunset.blogspot.com/2008/07/sunset-survivors-5.html
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Sunset: Survivors
Stan Howard Las Vegas, NV October 4th, 1991
After Stan made it back to his room, he sat on his bed and stared at the wall for six straight hours. The shock of what he had seen overwhelmed him. Stan drifted in and out of a conscious state for those hours. Occasionally he was aware of where he was. When in a deeper state of shock or denial, Stan’s mind went to his home town of Clear Creek, Wisconsin in the south eastern part of the state.
Clear Creek was a town of about twenty two thousand people. Stan grew up there with his brother and parents in a middle class house in a middle class neighborhood. For the first thirteen years of his life, Stan had a pretty normal childhood. On one cold Saturday in January, normal became the last word Stan would use to describe his childhood.
Read more...
http://ithappenedatsunset.blogspot.com/2008/07/sunset-survivors-4.html
After Stan made it back to his room, he sat on his bed and stared at the wall for six straight hours. The shock of what he had seen overwhelmed him. Stan drifted in and out of a conscious state for those hours. Occasionally he was aware of where he was. When in a deeper state of shock or denial, Stan’s mind went to his home town of Clear Creek, Wisconsin in the south eastern part of the state.
Clear Creek was a town of about twenty two thousand people. Stan grew up there with his brother and parents in a middle class house in a middle class neighborhood. For the first thirteen years of his life, Stan had a pretty normal childhood. On one cold Saturday in January, normal became the last word Stan would use to describe his childhood.
Read more...
http://ithappenedatsunset.blogspot.com/2008/07/sunset-survivors-4.html
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