Smoke On The Horizon

Part two of my thrutopian cli-fi take on the generational impact of the climate emergency.

You may recall a recent newsletter of mine contained a piece of flash fiction entitled ‘Water for my Seeds’.

Water For My Seeds

It was prompted by a competition on the themes of ‘Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Power’, with the intent of helping writers explore the climate and ecological emergencies. It could also encompass the “intersections of climate, social and racial justice”.

I was surprised to find the competition sparked my imagination to the extent of fostering a much broader creative narrative.

I believe humanity will only survive by finding peace with both itself and the only planet it’s capable of thriving on. This will only happen through long-term co-operation within and between sustainable communities, not the current selfish promotion of growth, wealth rivalry and conflict.

I wanted to not only describe the dystopian forms at least one crisis might take, but also to plant some thrutopian seeds to foster hope in my readers. Because I believe all of us will require greater reserves of hope in a near future.

The longer 1,300 word piece below, ‘Smoke On The Horizon’ is therefore meant as a deliberate mirrored accompaniment to ‘Water for my Seeds’. As I mentioned in the latter’s introduction, this prose is also intended to support a side-project which is very different to any of my previous creations, being both graphically illustrated and targeted at a younger audience. Together, the two pieces will act as the respective starting points for the initially separate journeys of my two young protagonists and their families. Then, when faced with mutually difficult challenges, I want their stories to intertwine, because ‘together is stronger’. This will also allow their cultural outlooks and circumstances to be contrasted and compared.

Any success in achieving the above, from both a literary and illustrative perspective, will hopefully match that intended for my protagonists in achieving their own goals. Because they should also be given reason to hope…

Until next time.

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Smoke On The Horizon

“Silja, Silja!” Tilda cried out, pedalling furiously in her friend’s dusty wake. Her bicycle wheels bounced over the rutted track home, the handlebars threatening to break free from her grip. Silja turned and laughed, pumping her legs faster, blonde hair flying. She liked to race Tilda home after school. She liked to win. Tilda didn’t mind. Winning might make her feel better. No-one should have to leave everything they knew behind. But the Alps and its rivers had dried up, and the chocolate Silja so loved, but would never bite into again, had been left to melt in the hot southern winds.

The heat was clawing at Scandinavia too, but people still streamed across the Dane-marked bridges and landed in boats, both big and small. Tilda’s father still complained, mostly about how his library shelves had become untidier. Her mother reminded him to be grateful that people still had books to read. The water level at the hydroelectric dam where she worked was lower every passing day.

Tilda knew paper was becoming harder to find. Her school had older books to read, but in every class she now had to use a tablet, even if a teacher hated them. Sometimes, after the bell rang, she realised she’d barely looked at the teacher during a lesson.

Today marked the end of the summer term, so Tilda wouldn’t see her teachers for weeks. She and her parents would soon leave for their holiday home on the cooler west coast. Her excitement had been building all week, her mind full of memories, starting with the annual ferry trip to the island. Then weeks spent in a small, brightly-painted wooden house, next to a lake almost surrounded by trees. Or cycling down the hill to the beach, with its smooth rocks, coarse sand and warmer water. It was Tilda’s favourite place in her limited world.

She wished Silja could come with her, but her friend’s parents remained strict and somehow sad. They didn’t like losing sight of their daughter for more than a few hours outside of school. Maybe that was normal where they came from. Or maybe travelling to Tilda’s home town had made them like that. Silja never spoke about what she’d seen or done on her journey through the Continent. But it must have been a lot, as she couldn’t have flown. No-one flew over Europe any more. Not since the eco-fighters had bombed so many planes.

The track turned into the wood Tilda knew so well. She’d played in it since she could walk. The loud rasping of the cicadas was less familiar than the sweet fragrance from the pine trees. The noisy insects had first appeared three years ago, annoying her father almost as much as his untidy bookshelves.

Silja screeched to a halt, her back tyre sliding sideways on the gravel, her body briefly masked by the rising dust. “I’m going to beat you now, Silja!” Tilda shouted, pumping her pedals harder. As she overtook her friend, she whooped with joy. Then she also saw what Silja was staring at. It was difficult to miss.

Through a gap in the trees, smoke was rising on the northern horizon. It wasn’t like the blue haze which rose from the expanse of forest surrounding their town. That was more obvious around dawn and dusk. This was thick black smoke rising high into the cloudless sky. Its billowing base looked angry, the underbelly orange, as if illuminated by a city’s streetlights. But there was no city beneath the cloud and it wasn’t night-time. It was a fire. A giant fire, like the ones she’d seen on TV. A fire you ran or sped away from and cried about to the news reporters because it had burnt everything you owned.

Silja stared at Tilda, her face white, her blue eyes wide. Her mouth was open, but no noise came out. Then she tried to set off on her bike again, but her foot slipped on the pedal and she crashed to the ground with a sharp cry, her limbs tangled up in her bike. Tilda let her own bike fall to the ground as she ran to her friend. “Silja, it’s okay,” she said, trying to move the bike without causing more pain. “The fire seems a long way off.”

Silja was shaking as her hands frantically tried to push the bike off herself. “It doesn’t matter, Tilda,” she said, her eyes darting everywhere. “It will still come here, over the hills and into the valley, to burn our homes and pets and friends and farms and cows and—”

“Silja, stop it. There aren’t any cows here. And your house is close by.” Blood oozed from grazes on her knee and elbow. “Your mum will be home. She’ll have plasters and everything.”

Photo by Ryan Arnst on Unsplash

Shouts come from further along the track. Silja’s father was running towards them. He wasn’t normally at home after school. When he reached them seconds later, his face was flushed and scared. He pushed Silja’s bike away with one hand whilst dragging his daughter to her feet with the other. When she cried out, he let go and grabbed Tilda by her arms instead. “Go home, Tilda, he said, between gasps. “Now. Pedal as fast as you can,” Tilda struggled against his fierce grip, the stink of cheese and sausage meat filling her nostrils. “Go now!” he shouted again, before releasing his grip.

Silja and her father took off along the track towards their house. It was just around the corner, with Tilda’s home less than a quarter of a kilometre from where it forked. “Your bike, Silja!” Tilda shouted at their disappearing backs. “You forgot your bike!” But Silja didn’t seem to care about her bike, and her father didn’t shout a reply. He had grabbed her hand again, urging her friend to run faster, until her bright pink rucksack jiggled around on her back like a piggyback partner in a school race. The sound of Silja crying and her father shouting died away as they rounded the bend.

Tilda stared again at the smoke cloud. There were more clouds now, growing bigger and darker and angrier. In the distance, she could hear the chop-chop sound of a helicopter. She remembered seeing one on TV last week. The people who were helped or carried out of it had soot-covered faces streaked with blood or tears or both. Some of them had bandaged hands. The faces of those on stretchers were covered by masks. None of the rescued people spoke to any TV people. They just sat on the ground and drank from big shiny flasks, as if it was the last water on Earth.

Vivid memories of another video flooded her head. It was filmed from the air, maybe when looking for survivors, but it seemed a pointless task. There were only stumps of chimneys and trees, and unrecognisable blackened shapes, all covered in ash. It had seemed like hell had taken over the earth and would never give it back. Lying awake that night, Tilda had imagined the grey flakes piling up on the burnt soil, covering her clothes and hair. She had thought of how it might smell, not like a log fire, perhaps more like burnt meat on a barbeque.

Tilda remembered her own bike. She pedalled as fast as could towards both her home and the darkening sky, repeating to herself not to panic, not to panic, not to panic. At the track’s fork, through the trees, she saw Silja’s house and her parents getting into their car, its roof-rack laden with suitcases and black refuse bags. Moments later, she spotted her own home, but the acrid smell she had failed to properly imagine was already invading her nose and stinging her throat and eyes.

Her body no longer cared about the words she kept telling her head. It just wanted her to stay alive.

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