Post-apocalyptic Visions

I peer through the blinds, like others of my species. We and our companion animals have retreated inside. The droids are here. Again

My dog whines and her body shakes in reaction to the sounds of the mechs as blades hack through vegetation, gathering in the harvest. A large ginger cat crouches under a low bush. Maybe he will be safe. If not, there's a plastic box on the second story landing to hide in. His eyes glitter at me as if wondering if I'd open the door for him. I would since he's never attacked my dog. Instead, he crouches farther back. The droning machine moves past and the danger passes.

A large blowing machine moves in next, but it is pointless. Droids don't recognize that the heavy

rains last night have left everything sodden. It is nearly impossible to move cut material into windrows. Before long another droid arrives, hacking at woody vegetation, toothed blades scissoring together. The cat takes flight, vanishing up a rotting metal stairway.

I peer out again to see branches being piled up as if for a bonfire. What the branches will be used for I don't know. Kindling? Do droids use kindling? They are not sufficient for building. Or will the creatures with hooded capes reminiscent of Jarwa use them for some purpose?

Rain arrives again in a fine mist and still the droids move deliberately, leaving deep black furrows in the thick ground vegetation. From prior history, I know the scars will heal, but the ground will have ridges. "Ruffles have ridges," I say to no one in particular and turn away from the blinds.

Tatooine? Nah, too much vegetation. Endor, home of the Ewoks? Or is it the gardening crew back for their weekly visit? 

Alternate Worlds in Our Reality

I've been watching Call the Midwife on Netflix. The series is based on the book Call the Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times by British midwife Jennifer Worth. I heartily recommend both the books and the TV series.

I'm transported to an alternate reality. In this case, a world based in the 1950's in the impoverished Docklands of London's East Side. An order of Anglican nuns and associated nurse midwives live at Nonnatus House to serve the inhabitants of this slum. The midwives bicycled around the ramshackle area while doing their best to insure safe childbirth and provide home healthcare. Telephones were almost unheard of in private residences and people depended on the ubiquitous red booth. National Health Service had just begun. Life was difficult at best and impossible at worst.

During those years I lived in a small town in the American midwest. Our grandmother had a telephone and our mother had a business phone, but telephones were rare. There was no bicycling  for business transportation because distances were much further than in the tenements of London, but we kids walked everywhere. We did not have midwives since American doctoring had extinguished them by then so learning about midwifery and home delivery is all new to me.

In learning about how to portray alternate worlds, if we keep our eyes open, we learn they are all around us. Later in life, I found many when I was a social worker working in a large poverty pocket, and later still when I lived in areas with large Native Alaskan populations. Later again in various areas of urban Boston.


As writers, when we create an alternative world - and they all are alternative to the reader - our prose will require vividness and complexity to draw the reader into that world, whether it is populated by goblins, romantics, midwives, or space aliens.  

When we arrive at the door, which path will we take and what will we find on the other side? Can we see it? Feel it? Smell it? What lies outside the door to your alternate reality? What will your readers learn?

Life and Disjunction

Life and disjunction. Nothing seems to hang together the way it should. Or could. While some of the players remain the same - parents, siblings, peripheral relatives, kids and grandkids - there is a distinctly disjunctive theme to life. My life, at any rate.

I've lived thither and yon, sometimes at the needs of a parental unit - as my daughter now refers to the individuals who give rise to and raise children - and sometimes at my own needs or whims. I'm no longer sure which is which - the need or the whim. Is it wanderlust or the absolute need to relocate for some truly viable reason? A job. An educational institution. A marriage. Career advancement. Running away from home - perhaps this is whimsy, although it might also be survival.

What is disjunctive in life gives rise to that which we end up dwelling upon with intimates, therapists, spiritual counselors, and others. It is what propels me to write, to figure out the why, the what next, the what would have happened if, the how things could have been different.

What is it that brings you to place pen to paper? Fingers to keyboard? Or perhaps an eye to the lens in order to capture some moment in a visual mode? Is it the bits of life that don't fit together easily? Those bits that flow smoothly like a slow moving river? A few years ago I caught this young enjoying the warm July day at Castle Island Park in South Boston. Is there a disjunction between his activities or a smooth flow? We never spoke. I wonder - a cell phone to take a call from a friend, take a photo of his kite, or because he didn't want to fly a kite and is sneaking in a call while a parent isn't looking?

It will always be a mystery and the picture will always be open to interpretation.