Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Book Club book Club book Club. Welcome to CZMBC. The
Speaker 2: only podcast that I introduced this way, also the only
Speaker 2: time I'll ever introduce the podcast that way. I mean
Speaker 2: host Margaret Kiljoyan. This is the Cool Zone Media book Club.
Speaker 2: Every week I read you a story that I like.
Speaker 2: That's it's pretty much it. That's the idea of it.
Speaker 2: Stories I like that I think you might like too.
Speaker 2: That's a big part of it. I have to think
Speaker 2: that you'll like them. Also, well, it's pretty easy for
Speaker 2: me to think that you'll like this week's story. This
Speaker 2: is really good and I don't know, gets at stuff
Speaker 2: about modern life and the future and how things are going,
Speaker 2: but in a way that I think you'll appreciate. This
Speaker 2: story is called spring Wood Spring and it's by b. Pladick.
Speaker 2: Here's a biography of Ben. Who's B Platick. Ben Platdock
Speaker 2: is a writer and literature professor based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Speaker 2: His debut novel, dry Land, came out in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: three and was shortlisted for the Crawford Award. You can
Speaker 2: find him sporadically on most socials at B Pladock, which
Speaker 2: is bp LA, D E K This particular story was
Speaker 2: first published by Strange Horizons in twenty twenty three. I
Speaker 2: think we've done some other Strange Horizons stories before, and
Speaker 2: there's a reason for that. Strange Horizons is a really
Speaker 2: good magazine, has really good stories. Y'all should check it out.
Speaker 2: I'm not just saying that because they've published them of
Speaker 2: my fiction, but they have published them of my fiction
Speaker 2: as well as this story. Spring Woods Spring by B. Pladock.
Speaker 2: Harry first noticed the trees in May when he went
Speaker 2: out in the purple dusked to hear the woodcocks dance.
Speaker 2: The sun had set an hour ago. Along the maple's
Speaker 2: tangled arms flickered a slight luminescence, like the nave of
Speaker 2: a candle lit church. By its glow, he could see
Speaker 2: what he usually couldn't, the male woodcock bulleting upwards, wings
Speaker 2: whistling to his parabola against the blue clouds. He watched
Speaker 2: for another hour until he was confident the light came
Speaker 2: from the trees themselves against Knight's dark lid. The canopy
Speaker 2: shown so soft an untrained eye might not notice. Maybe
Speaker 2: it was some new foxfire spreading north with the dying winters.
Speaker 2: Or maybe an electrical disturbance, an ozone fit kicked off
Speaker 2: by the burning tiger. He'd lived in the little cabin
Speaker 2: beside the field station for two decades, watching it change.
Speaker 2: Aging beside it, very little surprised him any more. At home,
Speaker 2: he shucked his boots, then settled in with a book
Speaker 2: on bioluminescence. He ignored the cardboard boxes heaped neatly in
Speaker 2: the corner. The university had not officially asked him to leave,
Speaker 2: but he was getting too frail to maintain the field
Speaker 2: station by himself. Undergrads came to chop and dig every weekend,
Speaker 2: as well as often his granddaughter Ava, who was too
Speaker 2: polite to call him old, but whose regular visits it
Speaker 2: was a five hour drive, spoke for themselves. Ava's father,
Speaker 2: Harry's son in law, had brought him the boxes. Bill
Speaker 2: had been sober for four years now. Last year he'd
Speaker 2: invited Harry to live with him. Harry couldn't decide if
Speaker 2: it was a genuine offer or a bid to get
Speaker 2: Ava to speak to Bill again. He wondered if she
Speaker 2: resented him for considering it. He wondered if he resented himself.
Speaker 2: But he was old, he would have to leave some time,
Speaker 2: and maybe he didn't have to forgive Bill to live
Speaker 2: with him. He'd begin tomorrow. He was always beginning tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Setting down the book, he switched off the light through
Speaker 2: the window saw to starshine. The tree's orange glow touched
Speaker 2: every corner of the room, the old photos and books,
Speaker 2: four walls, the exact size of a life. The next morning,
Speaker 2: when dawn still stood white and chilly in the Lowlands,
Speaker 2: he visited his wife's and daughter's graves. They grew at
Speaker 2: the bottom of the maple slope in a wind sheltered dell.
Speaker 2: For Lisa, he'd planted an arch of raspberry canes. When
Speaker 2: she'd learned the cancer was terminal, she'd demanded it, making
Speaker 2: some black and unrepeatable joke about him eating her fruit.
Speaker 2: She'd even helped him choose the spot, bare head wrapped,
Speaker 2: shaking with pain and laughter. He'd never had the chance
Speaker 2: to ask Junie what she preferred after the crash. She
Speaker 2: hadn't woken up, and juniper would have been too on
Speaker 2: the nose, and besides, it wouldn't grow in such wet woods.
Speaker 2: So he chose nanny berry because it's dry fruit tasted
Speaker 2: like bananas, which Junie had loved. He hoped he wasn't
Speaker 2: being selfish, burying her here instead of an enormal cemetery
Speaker 2: like Bill had wanted. He wished Lisa had been there
Speaker 2: to advise him, though he was grateful she'd never had
Speaker 2: to watch her daughter die. He touched the Raspberry's naked
Speaker 2: whips every day he visited the dell. When his undergrads
Speaker 2: had found out, they'd thought he was morbid. One eighteen
Speaker 2: year old had even suggested therapy to process. You can't
Speaker 2: mourn forever, she'd said, very young and benignant, it's not healthy.
Speaker 2: A thump from up the slope startled him, the familiar
Speaker 2: sound of Ava's civic door. Of course, she'd come to
Speaker 2: talk about the lights. He heard the plash of her
Speaker 2: boots as she crossed the brook, then the bright, dry
Speaker 2: snap of a branch as she entered the hardwoods. Five
Speaker 2: minutes later, she'd found him. Her face was clouded before
Speaker 2: she spoke. As always, she brushed the furled buds of
Speaker 2: Junie's nannyberry. Hi Mom, She turned to Harry, hugged him.
Speaker 2: Have you seen the trees? She said? My pa is
Speaker 2: freaking out. She says it's not fungal and not atmospheric,
Speaker 2: it's worldwide, did you know? And the Amazon It's so
Speaker 2: bright you can read a book by it. Even now,
Speaker 2: the glow was faintly visible, an orange thrumb on the
Speaker 2: bellies of the branches. He said, some things in nature
Speaker 2: resist explanation. Don't give me that crap, She laughed. What's
Speaker 2: your theory? You think I've got a better idea than
Speaker 2: your pi? Is it because I'm old? She laughed again,
Speaker 2: then socked him gently on the shoulder. Ava had moved
Speaker 2: out two years ago when she'd started her PhD. He
Speaker 2: had never asked about living with her. He knew she
Speaker 2: couldn't afford it. Hey, I peeked in the window and
Speaker 2: saw you haven't packed yet. I thought you were moving out,
Speaker 2: Moving out, she said, carefully, rather than moving in with Bill.
Speaker 2: Her circumspection shamed him. He wished she would just be angry.
Speaker 2: He wasn't sure if he wanted it for her sake
Speaker 2: or because it would license his own anger. I haven't decided,
Speaker 2: She gave a small paint smile. Right, Can I bird
Speaker 2: watch with you for a little? Of course? Above them,
Speaker 2: a clutch of yellow rumped warblers was twitching along a
Speaker 2: big hickory the trunk, shaggy bark seemed pearly smoothed by light.
Speaker 2: The bird's black claws stood out as if unfrosted glass.
Speaker 2: Ava swung her binoculars around on her shoulder. Harry raised
Speaker 2: his too. For her last two years of high school
Speaker 2: and all four of undergraduate, Ava had lived with Harry
Speaker 2: at the field station, helping him with the monitoring he
Speaker 2: conducted for the university. That least, the reserves three hundred
Speaker 2: acres of maple, hickory woods, cattail marsh, and wet meadow.
Speaker 2: She was fleeing Bill, whose drinking had gotten worse after
Speaker 2: the accident, and who could barely offer his daughter the
Speaker 2: solace of a hug for the loss of her own mother,
Speaker 2: So deep was he sunk in his own self recrimination
Speaker 2: all those years, as Bill's guilt had hardened into denial,
Speaker 2: Ava had wandered the dappled shadows of the reserve, gathering
Speaker 2: the woods around herself. Their green light had held her.
Speaker 2: Harry's chest pinched. He watched her as she gazed up.
Speaker 2: You can see it, she said. Her voice had a
Speaker 2: quaver he hadn't heard in years. A light in the
Speaker 2: woods like burning. It took two more weeks for the
Speaker 2: world to pay attention. First a third pager in The
Speaker 2: Times by their reporter on the quirky nature beat, then
Speaker 2: a below the fold feature on the light's effect on
Speaker 2: rural industries. Then finally a headline trees ruined sleep across nation.
Speaker 2: This was an exaggeration. The light was too subtle to
Speaker 2: keep anyone but birds awake. Still, he knew the story
Speaker 2: had gotten big when Bill used it as an opening.
Speaker 2: You see these tree lights crazy, but Ava has some
Speaker 2: good theories. Even by text. He could smell Bills craving
Speaker 2: for pardon, which had never quite extended to an apology.
Speaker 2: So you think about my awe, it's a limited time.
Speaker 2: Maybe he was too hard on him, Harry thought sometimes.
Speaker 2: After all, Bill had loved Junie too, Going once, going twice.
Speaker 2: He put down the phone without replying. By day, the
Speaker 2: trees glow was still muted, but at night the woods
Speaker 2: shimmered in perpetual twilight. The naked branches shone like the
Speaker 2: white pith of a flame. He was surprised there wasn't
Speaker 2: more panic. Maybe it was because of the quality of
Speaker 2: the light diffused through the new leaves. It length the
Speaker 2: maple slope a hazy, underwater feel, or the cloth soft
Speaker 2: atmosphere a fairy in an Edwardian novel. It did not
Speaker 2: blaze like a burning bush, vengeful foreboding. It merely seemed sad.
Speaker 2: The locals seemed to agree. One evening, Harry found a
Speaker 2: group of them standing in a circle among the trees,
Speaker 2: wearing sage crowns and holding tapers. Forgive us, they chanted,
Speaker 2: forgive us. He didn't bother, asking for what. Every week
Speaker 2: the trees grew brighter on the news, the ecologists, grumbling,
Speaker 2: turned slowly to alarm. Gouts of confused bats poured from
Speaker 2: caves at midday, flapping themselves to starvation. Leopards missed their pounces.
Speaker 2: Some night flowering trees stayed tightly furled while their pollinators
Speaker 2: buzzed past. The talking heads avoided calling it climate change
Speaker 2: for fear people would stop paying attention, but they were
Speaker 2: clearly worried. They were joined by the astronomers, whose dark
Speaker 2: sky areas were being polluted. Harry wondered at their calling
Speaker 2: at pollution when it seemed so natural, distinct from the
Speaker 2: glare of a city's skyglow. It gave the trees so
Speaker 2: little agency. Maybe they had just decided it was time
Speaker 2: to burn. Only the agricultural and industrial sectors celebrated the
Speaker 2: tree lights. More light meant longer hours. Harry hated agreen
Speaker 2: with bit businessmen, but he liked the lights too. For
Speaker 2: half the night, he wandered the dimly greening woods, tracing
Speaker 2: their worn paths like a thumb, brushing a familiar cheek.
Speaker 2: Up the cane, spiked with oaks, down the sandy kettle,
Speaker 2: threading the damn the beavers had heaped in the marsh's mouth.
Speaker 2: Here was the dell where Junie and Lisa had taken
Speaker 2: Ava for picnics, which Ava had cleared of buckthorne the
Speaker 2: weekend she'd first left home. You let it grow over,
Speaker 2: she'd accused. She had not cried, only hacked at the
Speaker 2: glossy shrubs for hours, over and over, destroying their foundations,
Speaker 2: uprooting everything. And here was the yellow birch. Harry had
Speaker 2: seated alone after he tried to imagine his life without
Speaker 2: these things, waking to different birds, song alien leaves, Sprain refused.
Speaker 2: Maybe he was just unable to face change. Though he'd
Speaker 2: known what his life would become without Ava when she left.
Speaker 2: Though he guessed what might happen to him now if
Speaker 2: the trees continued brightening. What might happen to him now
Speaker 2: is that he might get a chance to support our sponsors.
Speaker 2: What a sweet deal that totally has nothing to do
Speaker 2: with the economic system that has caused climate change. That
Speaker 2: if I mentioned you all would stop? Well, not you all?
Speaker 1: Y'all are that you.
Speaker 2: All pay attention to some of the climate change stories.
Speaker 2: Here's ads and we're back. Bill's weak old text still
Speaker 2: blinked on his phone. Harry knew Bill wanted Eva to
Speaker 2: absolve him, and he hoped caring for Harry might convince her.
Speaker 2: The thoughts stung. Juny might have wanted it too. She
Speaker 2: forgave and forgave right up until her death. Did Harry
Speaker 2: cling so close to her because he felt guilty for
Speaker 2: keeping her from Bill? Or did he simply feel guilty
Speaker 2: for clinging? Most people mourned their loved ones in graveyards,
Speaker 2: dedicated ceremonial spaces they visited only sometimes. Surely, living atop
Speaker 2: the dead among Lisa's raspberries and Junie's nannyberries was excessive,
Speaker 2: not healthy. As his student had said, he brushed the
Speaker 2: birch's boughs as he did every spring, smoothing back its
Speaker 2: new leaves like a child's soft hair. In the tree lights,
Speaker 2: they shone gold. By the time Ava returned three weeks later,
Speaker 2: twilight had brightened to the pale glove of a winter's
Speaker 2: cloudy afternoon. Her face was haggard. No one knows, she said.
Speaker 2: We've run every test we can, checked our results against
Speaker 2: teams in Brazil, Russia. Nothing. If we can't figure this out,
Speaker 2: what good are we? He guessed she had come to
Speaker 2: him for comfort. For Ava, that had always meant action,
Speaker 2: proof that she had a handle on things. He loved
Speaker 2: that she trusted him enough to give her this not solace,
Speaker 2: but a whetstone. Do you want to help me chop
Speaker 2: a dead mape, he asked, It's a test I've been
Speaker 2: meaning to do. This was a lie. He could no
Speaker 2: longer fell a tree by himself, much less bucket for testing,
Speaker 2: and after that first book on bioluminescence, he had done
Speaker 2: no more reading experimenting. Every time he tried, his mind
Speaker 2: slid away towards the light. If Ava saw through him,
Speaker 2: she didn't say. Together they tramped to a sugar maple
Speaker 2: whose trunk had been recently split by lightning. It would
Speaker 2: die soon. We've tried this, she protested, but weakly. Hafting axes,
Speaker 2: they chopped. Harry hacked the undercut. Ava taller and more solid,
Speaker 2: sawed through from the other side. Though he tried not to,
Speaker 2: he had to keep stopping to pant. He saw Ava
Speaker 2: WinCE watching him as they leaped back to let the
Speaker 2: maple fall. She took Harry's shoulder watched the canopy. The
Speaker 2: trunk creaked, snapped clean, and landed with a shudder, and
Speaker 2: the leaf litter. At just the same moment, a pulse
Speaker 2: of light fizzed through the woods. After Harry could swear
Speaker 2: the trees burned brighter. Following Ava, he leaned over the stump.
Speaker 2: She traced the rings with practiced fingers. The wood was
Speaker 2: pale gold, all light quenched, snuffed, he said, and she
Speaker 2: nodded like I said. We've tried it. Every time one's cut,
Speaker 2: the rest get brighter. It makes no sense. And you've
Speaker 2: ruled out pathogens, fungi, we've ruled out everything. She sat
Speaker 2: back on her haunches and pressed her hand's heel to
Speaker 2: her face. And it's not as if they've stopped logging.
Speaker 2: I guess you don't see it much here, since this
Speaker 2: is a reserve, but in manias it's getting unlivable. What
Speaker 2: are your next steps? If you got her to talk
Speaker 2: through it, you could help her find her strength. It
Speaker 2: was how they'd survived those first awful years. My next steps.
Speaker 2: She laughed a little, then looked at him. He knew then,
Speaker 2: I live in the city. I'll be fine, but you
Speaker 2: should leave. Ava. I came to tell you that you should,
Speaker 2: that it's okay. She held his eyes, balancing her own
Speaker 2: pain up and away like a karatid. When had she
Speaker 2: become such an adult to carry the stone of her
Speaker 2: hurt while freeing a hand to help someone else. Harry
Speaker 2: had not taught her to do it, nor had Lisa,
Speaker 2: whom she hadn't really known, and Juni had died too soon.
Speaker 2: Maybe the woods themselves had this remnant of a once
Speaker 2: great forest which grew straight and did not bend nor mourn.
Speaker 2: Despite the press of so much humanity. He was drifting.
Speaker 2: He shook his head, then looked at her. It's not
Speaker 2: I wish we could offer. I'm so sorry, but even
Speaker 2: with your Social Security check in Katy's salary, we could
Speaker 2: still just afford a one bedroom. The perils of dating
Speaker 2: a history PhD, he joked, because her face was wet marble.
Speaker 2: She looked down. He touched her shoulder. You never have
Speaker 2: to apologize to me, I know, but this tree thing
Speaker 2: is going to be bad, so just promise me you'll
Speaker 2: go all right. I don't have to see him, It's fine.
Speaker 2: Have you ever considered that. I don't want to live
Speaker 2: with Bill either. I can't lose you too. The knife
Speaker 2: was swift and unexpected. His heart cramped on it. He
Speaker 2: looked at Ava and knew she'd meant it that way. Yes,
Speaker 2: she was an adult, now, unafraid to use the weapons
Speaker 2: he'd given her against him for his protection. Okay, I
Speaker 2: promise good. She slumped forward, elbow on the damp stump
Speaker 2: on her back. The orange light pressed like a stone.
Speaker 2: She slept over that night in the trundle bed Harry
Speaker 2: kept for her. He pulled a blanket over the window
Speaker 2: for the first time in weeks. The cabin eased into darkness.
Speaker 2: He thought of the decades he'd lived at the field station,
Speaker 2: the long shudder of Lisa's death, the brutal punch of
Speaker 2: Junie's Like a torn mimosa. He'd curled up and withered
Speaker 2: into himself. His heart became a closed fist. Outside life
Speaker 2: went on. The cattails clicked in the marsh. The yarrow
Speaker 2: lifted its balmy perfume through his silence. The robins whistled.
Speaker 2: He had shut them all out like a cuckoo clock marionette.
Speaker 2: He'd left his cabin on the hour, taken readings for
Speaker 2: the university, then swiveled to march back inside. Until Eva
Speaker 2: came sixteen and betrayed her heart so hard he was
Speaker 2: afraid for her. Taking her hand, he had led her
Speaker 2: beneath the softening sea green of the maples. He had
Speaker 2: given her birds, eggs, coin, bright mushrooms, tubes of loamy
Speaker 2: soil until her eyes softened. She opened, relearned how to trust.
Speaker 2: He swore it would be her strength. But to believe
Speaker 2: in her openness he had to face his own. So
Speaker 2: he let the spring woods cut him. The green light
Speaker 2: pierced him with arrows. Their green smell split him in two.
Speaker 2: In his sealed heart, a crack widened. He walked in
Speaker 2: and through. He entered his grief as if for the
Speaker 2: first time, and it did not feel like death. I
Speaker 2: could live here, he thought, kneeling between Lisa's Raspberry and
Speaker 2: Junie's nanny Berry, their cool leaves touching his shoulders like
Speaker 2: a laying on of hands. I could live here. Later
Speaker 2: that day, Bill texted again, if Ava's the problem, just
Speaker 2: explain it to her. I've changed, Harry. Don't you get
Speaker 2: that I'm trying to help you. He did not reply.
Speaker 2: As July passed, the corporate world's delight eroded to a
Speaker 2: panic matching the ecologists. Forest industries stopped functioning to operate
Speaker 2: their bunchers, loggers donned blackout sunglasses. Trucks keeled off service roads.
Speaker 2: In British Columbia, Maine's pulp mill workers struck, and mass
Speaker 2: light was blinding eye melting in the Amazon. Companies tried
Speaker 2: sending automated loggers to clear cut space to dim the
Speaker 2: margin enough for manned machinery. When that failed, they tried burning.
Speaker 2: The trees just blazed brighter. The news did not know
Speaker 2: how to talk about it. Active nature, active god, reaction, revolution.
Speaker 2: No one said climate change anymore, because the light seemed
Speaker 2: to be the tree's decision. Even if it wasn't, they
Speaker 2: were clear cut anyway. In vaster and vaster retaliatory swaths,
Speaker 2: no one mourned them, save the people who always had,
Speaker 2: who had never been listened to anyway. At first, Harry
Speaker 2: wondered at this, how could the world willingly slaughter millions
Speaker 2: of living beings without remorse or a breath for grief?
Speaker 2: Then he thought, oh, when at first seemed to be
Speaker 2: a local effect quickly turned global. Even in reserves with
Speaker 2: no logging, the trees grew steadily brighter, as if sympathizing
Speaker 2: with their fellows in the dying rain forest. In the
Speaker 2: small towns near the field station, farmers began shrouding orchards
Speaker 2: in blackout or toppling their lines of wind breaks. Harry
Speaker 2: knew because he still had to drive for groceries once
Speaker 2: a week. He wore sunglasses now too, especially when facing west,
Speaker 2: where an amber halo beat on the sky over the
Speaker 2: state forest. In one place, an arm of smoke reached
Speaker 2: ominously up to strangle the light. When he pulled up
Speaker 2: before his cabin, he was not surprised to see a
Speaker 2: bank of cars beached on the grass like fish. Atop
Speaker 2: them sat his neighbors and hats and dark glasses, cannisters
Speaker 2: of gasoline under their arms. His heart shivered like a flame.
Speaker 2: We came to warn you, said one man, sliding off
Speaker 2: the hood. These woods are getting too bright. We can't
Speaker 2: live like this. You have to understand. It's a reserve,
Speaker 2: said Harry, You saying trees are more important than human life.
Speaker 2: They're not killing you, they're killing our livelihoods. That's the
Speaker 2: same thing. Not these trees, Harry said slowly. He shouldered
Speaker 2: his grocery bags and walked towards the cabin. Whatever you
Speaker 2: do here, you'll do with me in it. Think about that,
Speaker 2: you and your human life. Beneath his glasses, the man's
Speaker 2: mouth scowled. Harry didn't realize how ready he was for
Speaker 2: them to do it, to lie down and be swallowed
Speaker 2: by the glow. Until still scowling, they packed their gas
Speaker 2: canisters in their cars and left with an indignant rip
Speaker 2: of turf. He was left alone before the cabin, every
Speaker 2: cell in his body shaking with light. As he was
Speaker 2: unloading the groceries, his phone beaped. Did you get my last? Text?
Speaker 2: Said Bill? I'm not going to ask again. What did
Speaker 2: av Us say, Harry? Are you getting these? Harry? That night?
Speaker 2: What the clock said was night. Harry put on his
Speaker 2: sunglasses and went out. He lay down between Lisa's red
Speaker 2: Raspberry and Junie's nannyberry. Squinting, he looked up, Light pooled
Speaker 2: in his eyes and mouth warm, surprising. He was seventy
Speaker 2: four now, like a middle aged hickory or a very
Speaker 2: old willow. No elder in these woods, but no upstart either.
Speaker 2: Raspberries lasted a decade, nanny berry's four juny shrub would
Speaker 2: outlive him, as JUNI should have. If he raised his arm,
Speaker 2: the glow smoldered through his sleeve. It could almost have
Speaker 2: been bark, much like our advertiser bark. Get your bark
Speaker 2: from the Bark Store. Listen to this new podcast about
Speaker 2: types of bark. Here's ads, and we're back. True to
Speaker 2: his word, Bill did not text again, but at the
Speaker 2: beginning of August, Ava called Harry assumed it was her
Speaker 2: because she did it five times in a row, refusing
Speaker 2: to be fooled, insisting he pick up. When he finally did,
Speaker 2: she said, you're still there. Yes, for fock's sake, you promised,
Speaker 2: but her anger sounded tired. Are you all right? Can
Speaker 2: you still drive? Get food? I have enough, he said.
Speaker 2: After the neighbor's visit, he had only made one grocery run.
Speaker 2: He'd bought in bulk, brown rice, vitamins. Meat was easy.
Speaker 2: The light confused the rabbits. What about you. I'm all right.
Speaker 2: Katie bought tinch for the car windows so we can
Speaker 2: still drive. But my eye's hurt all the time. Mine too.
Speaker 2: We still don't know what it is. They convince people
Speaker 2: to stop logging the Amazon at least, but it's not
Speaker 2: getting any dimmer. The supply chains are all fucked. He
Speaker 2: heard her swallow. It feels like an apocalypse. How do
Speaker 2: we do this? You'll figure it out, you always have, sure,
Speaker 2: she said. He wished he could hug her. Phone reassurances
Speaker 2: sounded cheap. He cannot twist his imagination into the anxious
Speaker 2: shape Avas must take every morning as a young woman
Speaker 2: with years ahead of her, who had been promised a world,
Speaker 2: a broken one, but a world His words had never
Speaker 2: been equal to her losses. As for himself, he needed none.
Speaker 2: All the world he wanted stood outside among the trees.
Speaker 2: The thought should have bothered him, Then it bothered him
Speaker 2: that it didn't. Then he gave up and simply let
Speaker 2: it be what it was, a comfort, like warm light
Speaker 2: through a window. He told Ava about the woods. The
Speaker 2: heliotropic plants aren't fooled, but the mammals are. The deer
Speaker 2: run into things, and the rabbits just stay in their
Speaker 2: burrows until they're so hungry they can't What about the
Speaker 2: birds we'll see during the micro They talked for another
Speaker 2: ten minutes. Harry made parental inquiries. Did she have enough money?
Speaker 2: Was Katie okay? Was Katie's family? Could she get her meds?
Speaker 2: The cabin's atmosphere of golden syrup slowed his thoughts. Yes,
Speaker 2: more or less, Yes, maybe not, because meds depend on
Speaker 2: supply chains, and those, as she'd said, were fucked. I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: he said, and she said it's fine. At the end
Speaker 2: of the call, she lingered on her goodbyes. I've been thinking,
Speaker 2: Katie says, the nuclear family is a modern construction anyway.
Speaker 2: Generations used to live together all the time. So yeah,
Speaker 2: money's tight, but like you said, we can figure it out.
Speaker 2: His heart leapt. It was what he'd hoped for. Yet
Speaker 2: outside his heavy curtains, the woods were shining. Averi's dawn
Speaker 2: call spiraled down through the gold afternoon. He heard himself say,
Speaker 2: that's okay, Aves, it's not We don't know how bad
Speaker 2: things will get the power grids are going and you're
Speaker 2: so isolated out there. I'm not that old. As vehemence
Speaker 2: surprised him, as did his lie about his motives. Through
Speaker 2: the curtains, the glow reached into the cup his cheek.
Speaker 2: Did he owe her this, he wondered? Did she have
Speaker 2: the right to save him? Outside, the leaves of Junie's
Speaker 2: nannyberry gleamed like the warm red of palm, suffused with light.
Speaker 2: When did grief become a home? Look if it gets bad,
Speaker 2: We're coming for you. Okay, sure, he said, distracted a
Speaker 2: beat of suspicious silence. Okay, Gramps, love you, love you.
Speaker 2: As summer ended, light blazed from the reddening trees. It
Speaker 2: sheered off in great metallic sheets, like hopkins, God shining
Speaker 2: from the shook foil. Harry ate Less slept less. He
Speaker 2: felt pierced and filled by radiance. Ava had been right
Speaker 2: about the power. It grew sporadic, and the Internet even worse.
Speaker 2: During the ever briefer gasps of service, he read the
Speaker 2: news around the world. Cities had slaughtered their trees. Country
Speaker 2: people had fled to plains and coasts and metropoles. Brasilia, Vancouver,
Speaker 2: Toms were emptying, and still the woods blazed brighter. The
Speaker 2: foresters must have found a way to keep felling the Amazon,
Speaker 2: or else no one had stopped them from burning it.
Speaker 2: For their part, his neighbors never returned with their gas canisters.
Speaker 2: He wondered what had happened. He hadn't driven for groceries
Speaker 2: in a month. Slowly he ate down his preserves, strapped
Speaker 2: on his ski mask and glasses to forage for Chantrell's.
Speaker 2: The woods of his heart were changing, opening as if
Speaker 2: the light were a great door he could not quite
Speaker 2: step through. Most days he spent outside, ending each by
Speaker 2: lying down in the dell between Raspberry and Nannyberry, where
Speaker 2: he had he could have mingled with their roots. He
Speaker 2: watched the animals adjust. So far, the only die offs
Speaker 2: had been the rabbits. But it was September and the
Speaker 2: squirrels weren't hoarding. No swallows gathered on the cables, no
Speaker 2: tins of geese raked the sky. Daylight never shortened. For them,
Speaker 2: it must seem like an endless summer. Though frost now
Speaker 2: stiffened the sedge on her calls. Ava's voice was tense.
Speaker 2: Things are It's falling apart in a new way. I
Speaker 2: couldn't have imagined it, Hang on, We'll come for you
Speaker 2: as soon as we can. Up the esker, the maples
Speaker 2: were an inferno of yellow. On the highest crowns. Where
Speaker 2: the real sun touched, the leaves glowed ruby. Lisa's raspberry
Speaker 2: became a red lantern lit from within. Above it, the
Speaker 2: slope burned like a bank of prayer candles, one leaf,
Speaker 2: one flame for each palm in the Amazon, each jack,
Speaker 2: and the tiga, a million souls grieved by no one
Speaker 2: save themselves. For hours now he lay in the chilly
Speaker 2: duff between Lisa and Juny, his kindling sack or mushroom
Speaker 2: basket forgotten, even shielded. His eyes throbbed. The shrubs leaves
Speaker 2: were palms of flame, laying him down. He was theirs.
Speaker 2: They held him. I'm sorry, he thought, tired, grateful, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: Against his curtained windows. Beat the light, the light, the light.
Speaker 2: In November, the power died completely. Only his solar battery
Speaker 2: let him receive Ava's calls, half eaten by static. On
Speaker 2: the very last before his phone died, he thought he
Speaker 2: heard her say Soon. He put the phone down and
Speaker 2: looked up beyond his four loved walls. The world was flame.
Speaker 2: The naked trees observed their masts, hickories, oaks, sugar maples
Speaker 2: lift in a thousand tapers. It might never end. He
Speaker 2: looked across the room at his scant pantry, the piles
Speaker 2: of wood he'd laid in for winter. He would wait
Speaker 2: until he couldn't. No matter when ava came, she would
Speaker 2: be on time, though with twenty four she might not
Speaker 2: have understood that for a while. Some things resist explanation.
Speaker 2: From the corner of the cabin, he drew a tallow candle.
Speaker 2: Closing his eyes, he opened the door and walked out.
Speaker 2: He followed the path past the marsh, down the slope
Speaker 2: towards the Raspberry and nanny Berry. He could see the
Speaker 2: trees through his eyelids, through the fire in his chest,
Speaker 2: time to burn. When he reached the dell, he cupped
Speaker 2: the candle above him. The maple's nave flared a host
Speaker 2: of tapers that would perhaps finally burned down long after
Speaker 2: he himself had guttered into the soil. He would stand
Speaker 2: vigil as long as he could, for love, for the woods,
Speaker 2: for the world, for everything that dies too soon and
Speaker 2: is not mourned. He touched the cool wick once to
Speaker 2: his lips, then he opened his eyes and raised it
Speaker 2: up to the light the end. I really like that story.
Speaker 2: I think anyone who knows me at all will understand
Speaker 2: why I like that story so much. I identify with
Speaker 2: the person aging living in the woods. I love the
Speaker 2: intermingling of personal grief and climate grief because these things
Speaker 2: are not They can't be fully separated, you know, like
Speaker 2: we try to understand and move through our personal grief
Speaker 2: these days in the context of climate grief, in the
Speaker 2: context of like not really knowing that there's going to
Speaker 2: be a world in two generations and not knowing what
Speaker 2: that means, you know, and then tying that into how
Speaker 2: you know, Ava had been promised a certain life and
Speaker 2: then isn't going to get it, and you know what
Speaker 2: that means for the people who care about Ava. I
Speaker 2: don't know. I really like this story. I hope you
Speaker 2: enjoyed it too. I asked Ben what he had to
Speaker 2: say about it, and he said, this story is based
Speaker 2: on a real field station near where I live. The
Speaker 2: maples are very beautiful and fall. I also asked him
Speaker 2: what to plug, and he said, people who liked this
Speaker 2: story might like my debut novel, dry Land, which came
Speaker 2: out in twenty twenty three with You of Wisconsin Press,
Speaker 2: and is about a gay World War One forester who
Speaker 2: learns why martyr complexes make for bad ecology. Folks might
Speaker 2: also like my new short story at Strange Horizons, which
Speaker 2: is my favorite of ever written, The Spindle of Necessity.
Speaker 2: Trans guy meets a beloved author in a dream he
Speaker 2: suspects was trans. Two things get weird, so I don't know,
Speaker 2: I'm excited to read that story too. In case folks
Speaker 2: aren't familiar with Strange Horizon, it's like a free online thing.
Speaker 2: You don't got to pay for it. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: like cool if you support their fundraising and stuff like that, right,
Speaker 2: and they're they're a pretty sweet magazine. So you should
Speaker 2: check out The Spindle of Necessity and you should check
Speaker 2: out dry Land. I know that I'm looking forward to
Speaker 2: checking out both. And that's it. I'll see you next
Speaker 2: week on Cool Zone Media book Club, or I'll read
Speaker 2: you a different story, because I'm not going to read
Speaker 2: you this story again. I really like this story, but
Speaker 2: I think that probably at some point the producers would
Speaker 2: notice if I read you the same story over and
Speaker 2: over again. Next week, new story. Talk to you all
Speaker 2: soon Bye.
Speaker 1: It Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.
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Speaker 1: You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
Speaker 1: monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.