WEBVTT - CZM Book Club: Everything that Isn't Winter, by Margaret Killjoy, Part One 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:10.160 Cal Zone Media book Club, book Club, book Club, book Club, 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:13.200 Solstice book. 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:15.840 Club, that's what people always call this. It's a Solstale 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:16.239 book Club. 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:18.599 Hello and welcome to Cool Zone Media book Club, the 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:20.720 only podcast where you don't have to do the reading 0:00:20.760 --> 0:00:23.680 because I do it for you. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy. 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:27.040 And this week and next week I have a story 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:32.320 that I wrote. Happy Solstice, everyone, to honor the dark, 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:34.760 to celebrate the return of the light, and to indulge 0:00:34.760 --> 0:00:39.440 yourselves in the legacy of storytelling and gift giving. I'm 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:42.400 going to share first of two parts of one of 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:45.400 my own stories. Next week you'll get the second half. 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:48.840 And this story means a lot to me. This story 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:52.400 is called Everything that Isn't Winter, which is a okay, 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:54.880 look it takes place in Beltane, but it's called Everything 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:57.560 that Isn't Winter and it's about how one relates to 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:01.400 the season of winter. And I don't know this one. 0:01:01.560 --> 0:01:03.240 It means a lot to me because I wrote it 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:06.680 at the end of the Clarion West Workshop for Short 0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:09.920 story Writing and it was kind of my like, I 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:13.720 have learned so much about craft and I've been writing 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:16.679 at a somewhat professional level for a little while before that, 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:20.360 but this story was still, like on a craft level, 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:23.720 really important to me. And also it was one of 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:27.399 my first big short story sales. It sold to tour 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:31.759 dot com in I think twenty fifteen and really kind 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:36.280 of helped set my career up. So this is a 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:38.960 different kind of Christmas story, But what are we here 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:42.560 if non traditional? It's still got found family, It's got 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:46.320 self actualization and enough winter to justify the choice, and 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:50.440 I hope you all enjoy it. Everything that Isn't Winter 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:55.880 by Margaret Kiljoy. The evening sky was a spring gray, 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:58.760 which is different than a winter gray, and the soft 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:02.000 light that came down through the clouds lit up the festival. 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:06.880 Fires danced and people danced, and my boyfriend was dancing 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:08.959 with a woman who was there to work the harvest. 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:12.840 They were hitting it off. It looked like everything was 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:16.480 perfect in what was left of the world. At the 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:19.560 in Between Lodge, we picked most of our tea leaves 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:24.120 on beltane. Traditionally, the first flush is in March and 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:27.760 the second is in June. But traditionally tea was imported 0:02:27.760 --> 0:02:31.000 from Asia, and obviously we hadn't had contact with anywhere 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:34.160 that far away in decades, so While we do a 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:37.560 modest first flush and second flush, most of what we 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:42.160 grow is what you'd call jarling in between. We grow 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:43.840 it in the middle of what used to be called 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:48.640 Washington State, so it's not really jarling at all. Just 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:53.480 in between. I sipped from a ceramic cup of mushroom 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:56.679 tea weak enough that it just sharpened me up, made 0:02:56.720 --> 0:03:00.400 me aware of patterns of bodies and light. I wasn't 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:03.480 on duty, but I was on call, and my rifle 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:05.960 was stacked at the guard post by the eastern gate, 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:09.280 so I didn't get any further into another realm than 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:13.000 just the one cup of tea. We'd adulterated the mushroom 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:16.240 with oolong from the first flush, and the pleasant and 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:20.679 revolting tastes fought in my throat a little war between 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:25.640 caffeine and psilocybin. The band played war songs on guitars 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:29.000 and fiddles and drums. The handsome men of the choir 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:33.600 sang the songs I'd fought to, songs I relish, songs 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:36.120 that transport us from the world of the living to 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:39.600 that liminal space of both battle and sex where we 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:43.840 make and take life. My bare feet were in earth, 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:49.680 the mountain wind in my hair. My boyfriend's dance partner 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:52.160 wandered to the edge of the crowd, and I went 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:56.080 to stand beside her. You must be aiden, She turned 0:03:56.120 --> 0:04:00.200 toward me. I am, Khalil was just talking about you. You. 0:04:01.280 --> 0:04:04.640 Khalil was still dancing, now alone, thick legs kicking out 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:08.400 as he spun. He was awkward and completely in his element. 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:12.520 I love him, I said, I gathered as much. 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:13.080 She said. 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:15.920 She was watching him the same way I watched him. 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:19.880 You should sleep with him, I said. She turned toward me. 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:24.200 The spark's gone, I said, has been for years. I 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:26.359 can get late easily enough, but it isn't as easy 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:30.480 for him. She was just staring at me. I've never 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:33.880 been good with reading faces. I saw myself and the 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:38.080 firelight reflected and dancing in her green eyes. That's how 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:41.039 it works for me, anyway, I went on. Whenever I 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:43.120 sleep with someone else, it just makes me want him 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:47.400 all the more. You should sleep with him. An autumnal 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:51.320 smell broke my train of thought. Autumnal smells had no 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:55.360 place during Beltane, but there it was, amidst the ambient 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:58.920 scent of the tea fields, the iron sweat of the dancers, 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:03.680 the pines smoke. A voice carried through the evening sense 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:09.640 fire burning tea plants. The smell was burning tea plants. 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:13.560 I ran for my rifle, snatched it up, and went 0:05:13.600 --> 0:05:17.120 into the rows toward the growing pillar of smoke. It 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:21.120 started off as a Doric column, shifting to Atlas holding 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:22.800 the world on his shoulders. 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:24.839 By the time I reached it. 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:28.320 It was yigdrassil, the world tree, thick and ropey and 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:32.479 holding up every one of the worlds. There was no lightning, 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:36.680 no likely cause, but arson. I ran toward the edge 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:39.800 of the forest, beyond the fields, to search for culprits. 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:44.680 At night we see movement. In the day, we see shape, 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:49.760 but in the gloaming we see nothing. I saw nothing. 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:53.200 It took fifty of us to cut a fire break 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:56.720 to keep the blaze from spreading, tearing into tea plants 0:05:56.720 --> 0:06:00.520 with machetes while the fire tore into our livelihood. The 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:04.760 band played because what else can you do? Of the 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:08.200 hundred rooms in the lodge, ours was in the northeast corner, 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:12.120 closest to the fields in the forest. The poster bed 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:16.080 was ancient, had been ancient before the apocalypse. It had 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:19.440 been through worse than we ever had. The tea had 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:22.000 worn off, but spring nights of their own magic. I'll 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:25.080 never understand or forgive. And there was no cell in 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:29.599 my body that was feeling sober or responsible. Calil was 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:32.080 on his side, staring out the window at the burned 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:34.719 fields lit by the moon and the dark woods. The 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:38.880 moon couldn't light. I stood in the door. I'm sorry, 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:44.120 he said, it's fine. I said, it wasn't. It's just 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:47.200 that it's bell tine, it's spring, sex and flowers and 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:51.479 all that shit. I should want you. It's fine, I said, 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:55.000 it wasn't. I've never much cared for spring. 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:57.360 That part was true. 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:00.719 You look beautiful tonight, he said, But he was looking 0:07:00.760 --> 0:07:03.400 at the forest. He didn't look at me much anymore. 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:06.640 What about that woman, the one you were dancing with, 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:09.760 I asked, the one who avoided me after you scared 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:10.200 her off? 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:12.720 That one? 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:17.000 It's fine, he said. There wasn't much more to say. 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:20.440 I left our room and I left him there, and 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:23.960 I went to go sleep at the guard post. But 0:07:24.040 --> 0:07:26.520 do you know what won't leave you on a cold 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:29.240 night to go to sleep alone in the barracks and 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:31.960 deal with their attachment issues? Because they are loving and 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:33.280 steadfast and forever. 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:34.600 That's right. 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:39.200 It's the goods and services advertised on this show, unless 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:41.720 it's gambling. Please don't do that. Gambling does not love 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:59.040 you back, and we're back. First light found me in 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:03.040 the forest with Barley, our scout. Sword fern grew up 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:05.720 from the ground. Maidenhair fern grew out of the rock 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:09.160 walls of gullies, and Usnia hung from every limb of 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:13.920 every tree in handsome gouts of green. We walked along 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:17.880 down cedared trees in the wet fog. I didn't follow 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:21.520 Bartley's footsteps, not exactly, because one person leaves tracks, but 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:26.120 two people leave trails. The forest is something I know. 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:33.840 A rifle is something I know. Violence I know. We 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:36.240 stopped to break our fast under the boughs of an 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:39.640 old growth black cottonwood that towered over much of the 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:43.600 rest of the forest. We ate jerky, tough but fresh, 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:48.800 and we passed a thermas of tea, just tea. You 0:08:48.880 --> 0:08:52.440 lost the trail, didn't you, I asked, Never was one, 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:56.439 Bartley said. Bartley had a lazy eye, was always looking 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:58.480 out to the side, like she was a prey animal. 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:02.400 Gray and white ran through her. Otherwise black hair, and 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:04.360 she was old enough that she should have remembered the 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:08.000 old world. She always swore she didn't that. The first 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:11.040 thing she remembered was being alone in the woods, barely 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:14.680 post pupessant, as she cut up a deer. Her life 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:17.319 had begun at the same time, so many lives had ended. 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:21.720 A lot of people her age are like that. Khalil 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:24.360 and I, our lives had begun with our berths. The 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:28.160 next year, in the post collapse baby boom, a lot 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:31.800 of danger meant a lot of kids got born. What 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:34.679 are we doing, then, I asked, If I was going 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:37.559 to raid us, i'd have camped up this hill. Bartley said, 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:40.280 there's a spring up there, one you can drink from, 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:42.720 and a few open cliff faces that let you spy 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:46.160 on us. Why do you think they did it, I asked, 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:49.880 Bartley shrugged. People don't like it when other people have 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:54.400 nice things. The in Between Lodge was nice. There was 0:09:54.440 --> 0:09:57.800 no denying that we were a collective of fifty five adults, 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:00.800 forty children, and another sixteen people half way between those 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:04.720 two categories. We'd raised up the lodge ten years back, 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:07.560 just as the New World settled into place and drew 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:11.320 its political borders, just as I'd left my teenaged years. 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:14.440 We grew tea, and we played our part in the 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:18.880 New World's mutual aid network of a few interdependent city states, communes, 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:22.800 and hamlets. We sold, gave or traded provisions to people 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:26.480 passing through the old railway tunnel, and we guarded Stampede 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:31.280 Pass the eastern edge of the New World. Well, mostly 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:35.600 Bartley and I guarded Stampede Pass. Everyone could fight, everyone 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:39.680 stood watch in rotation, but Bartley handled terrain and tracking 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:44.160 while I ran tactics. Who made this jerky? Bartley asked, 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:46.840 And what the hell kind of not tasty animal died. 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:47.120 To make it? 0:10:48.160 --> 0:10:52.640 You grumpy? I asked, damn right? Bartley said, I'm hungover 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:54.880 and I didn't even get to sleep between drunken. Now 0:10:55.520 --> 0:11:01.600 she shook the thermos and we're out of tea. We caught 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:05.080 him with his dick in the wind. It wasn't luck. 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:07.560 We'd been waiting around for almost an hour for him 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:10.600 to do something like fall asleep or get up to piss. 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:13.880 Bartley had been right. He'd been camped up on the ledge, 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:17.280 camouflaged by a bush, watching the in between with glare 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:21.720 free binoculars. He was under fed, or maybe he was 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:24.520 just built that way, and he kept scratching at his 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:28.719 scalp like he was lousy, younger than me, less than 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:31.640 half Bartley's age, and he had all the bushcraft of 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:34.800 a city kid. His clothes were wrong for the west 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:38.880 side of the mountains, too urban, too old world. There 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:41.400 he was pissing off the cliff when I walked out 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:44.359 from behind the tree with a rifle leveled at him. 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:47.120 I saw him think about dropping his dick and going 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:49.960 for his rifle, and I saw him realize that wasn't 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:52.679 going to work. He put his hands in the air. 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:55.480 If he was smart and his gang could afford it, 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:59.200 he had a radio set to automatic voice activated transmission, 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:02.240 and there was someone listening on the other end, but 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:04.920 he was too dumb to shave his lice infested hair. 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:09.160 I was pretty sure we'd got him cold. You're going 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:11.560 to tell me a lot of things, I said, You 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:13.960 tell me those things and you'll get supplies and a 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:18.040 one way trip on whatever caravan you want. I wouldn't 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:20.960 tell you the color of the lips of your mother's cunt. 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:25.520 I shot him. The rifle slammed into my shoulder. The 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:27.880 report scattered birds and hurt my ears. 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:29.200 The bullet hit. 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:31.080 Him in the neck and sent him tumbling over the 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:35.800 edge of the cliff. You kidding me, Bartley asked. Well, 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:37.680 I wasn't going to torture the kid, and he didn't 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:41.680 want to talk nice. Bartley shook her head. Now we've 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:44.079 got to go find him, you know, she said, search 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:49.680 his body. Maybe I'll have some tea. We eventually found 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:51.679 the wreckage of the man at the base of the cliff, 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:55.560 his ribs sprouting from his chest. The noon sun and 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:58.320 I both kept watch over the forest while Bartley combed 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:02.760 over the body. Help me lift him, Bartley said, I 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:04.880 got my hands under what was left of the bandit's 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:10.199 armpits and lifted his inside stripped down my leg. I'm 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:12.800 getting too old for this. The New world is getting 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:16.360 too old for this. I said it because it was 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:18.880 what people were supposed to think, but I didn't really 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:23.560 feel it. Peace didn't work for me. Battle is a 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:26.680 thing that gets into my gut, makes me desperate to live. 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:30.280 Love is a thing that gets into my gut makes 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:34.559 me wish I were dead. Bartley went through his pockets. 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:38.000 She pulled out a pack of cheap Naked Lady cards. 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:41.839 Threw them off into the forest. In another pocket, she 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:46.280 found a topo map. Last, she pulled out a radio. 0:13:46.440 --> 0:13:50.719 She clicked it off. Hell, I said, they heard all 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:55.640 of that. Hell, indeed, what's the map? Tell us? I asked, 0:13:56.520 --> 0:13:59.280 nothing's marked on it, but it's pretty zoomed in. Doesn't 0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:02.840 cover more than a thirty five square kilometers. Since the 0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:04.880 in between isn't the center of it, I figure there 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:08.079 camp might be. Puts it halfway between here and the tunnel. 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:11.400 They know where we are, I said, but we don't 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:14.319 know where they are. And do you know who else 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:18.160 knows where you are? It's the third parties that sell 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:22.160 ads on our podcast. And just a reminder, you can 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:24.040 sign up for Coolers on media at any time for 0:14:24.040 --> 0:14:25.640 an ad free listening experience. 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:40.040 Here's ads and we're back. 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:46.760 They might hit us tonight. I bet the fire was 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:47.680 just to flush us out. 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:48.120 I said. 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:50.720 They set this kid here to see how we organized 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:55.120 our defense. What's the plan? You know, I'd hate for 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:57.920 you to go out alone, but maybe I've got to 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:02.280 go out alone. Bartley said, I'll go warn everyone, set patrols, 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:05.400 get children to shelter, and I'll make it back up 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:07.120 here and to range and call it in. Once I 0:15:07.160 --> 0:15:10.440 figured out where they are, we started down the hill. 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:13.720 The sun was halfway to the horizon. It was cutting 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:16.920 into my eyes and baking that kid's blood into my clothes. 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:20.240 We stepped out from the trees and scrambled down to 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:23.200 the railroad tracks about a kilometer east of the in between. 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:26.720 Bartley came with me. The half a kilometer or so, 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:33.720 our paths overlapped. I always liked walking tracks, Bartley said, yeah, 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:37.640 I asked. I wasn't really curious, but I preferred to 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:39.560 listen to her speak, then listen to my heart beat 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:42.320 a rhythmically, like it always did after I shot somebody. 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:45.800 Doc says it's just jitters what some of the old 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:47.680 books called generalized anxiety. 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:50.120 I say, it's me getting off light. 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:55.520 Karmically speaking, Roads are hell, Bartley said, because they're easy. 0:15:55.680 --> 0:15:57.920 It's easy to make a road, right, You just get 0:15:57.920 --> 0:15:59.560 a bunch of people to walk somewhere a lot. 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:02.320 That'll make a road. You walk a road, it's easy. 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:05.200 Lulls you to sleep, and there's some asshole hiding with 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:07.000 a gun, and you don't even notice it because you're 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:11.680 lost in your head. Roads are hell. Sounds like me 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:16.640 and Khalil. We fell into habit made a road railroads. 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:19.560 Though railroads are great, Bartley went on, they're hard to make, 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:22.960 they're hard to walk. They're so specialized, and the best 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:26.160 part is that they're specialized for something that doesn't exist anymore. 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:29.680 These things weren't made for our cow drawn box cars 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:32.920 or our little rail bikes. They were made for kilometer 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:36.760 long chains of cars pulled by the sheer strength of coal. 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:40.320 When you're using something specialized and you're using it wrong, 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:42.040 that's the beauty in life. 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:44.680 I thought you were grumpy. 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:48.440 I said, I was grumpy, and Bartley said, but now 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:53.280 I'm walking on railroad tracks. We built the in between 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:57.240 in the narrow valley below the pass. The Green River 0:16:57.360 --> 0:17:01.320 guarded our north, the mountains are south. A road from 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:03.880 the west met its end at the door to the lodge, 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:07.440 and a railroad ran the whole of our land. We 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:12.200 were unwalled. We were unwalled for a thousand reasons. We 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:15.840 were unwalled because we were peaceful. We were unwalled because, 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:19.120 though increasingly rare, mortars and grenades and rockets were still 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:22.479 a part of this world. Even some helicopters had survived 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:25.640 the electromagnetic waves that had wiped so much technology from 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:28.280 the earth, as I had heard it, and such vehicles 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:31.960 have no respect for walls. We were unwalled, because a 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:34.800 stone wall blinds the defender as much as the attacker. 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:38.359 We gated the road and the railway, but those gates 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:42.800 remained open during daylight. Khalil was waiting by the gate 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:45.720 for me when I got back. He had that pick 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:48.600 in his short afro. The one the trader had told 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:51.280 me was tortoiseshell, and who was I to say it 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:54.200 wasn't the one Khalil had told me it was lucky, 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:58.040 And who was I to say it wasn't. He saw 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:02.000 me coming, and a smile split across's beard. The smile 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:04.439 got bigger the closer I got, until I was in 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:08.840 his arms. We heard a shot, he said, hours ago, 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:14.080 I shot somebody. I said, I was so small in 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:16.760 his embrace, he was one of the only people in 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:19.040 the world who was large enough to make me small. 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:23.160 He kissed my forehead, and I tilted my neck up 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:26.600 and looked in those black brown eyes behind his glasses, 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:30.119 those eyes the same color as mine, And I kissed 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:33.720 him on the mouth. You all right, he asked, at last, 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:37.719 I'm all right. It took hours. I've been waiting for 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:41.280 you for hours. I pulled away, set my rifle down 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:44.920 at the guard post. The crows stood sentinel on the gate. 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:50.040 I can't handle you worrying about me. I said it 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:53.680 was the right thing to say, because it was true. 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:57.520 It was the wrong thing to say, because I loved him. 0:18:57.920 --> 0:18:59.920 He lifted his glasses, rubbed at his eyes. 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:04.000 I know, he said. He walked away. 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:08.399 My eyes lingered on his back, and I still felt small. 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:12.640 The wind wailed across the fields of Tea. I got 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:15.280 the children and the infirm into the bomb shelter, a 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:18.000 one hundred year old relic of a paranoid generation that 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:21.560 had been right about the apocalypse, just wrong about its timing. 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:26.560 Then set out organizing an all hands watch. Fifteen people 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:29.920 were on at all times, no able bodied adults exempted 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:32.919 from taking a shift. No one liked it, but no 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:36.200 one complained. I don't tell the cooks what to feed us, 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:38.479 and I don't tell Doc how to sew us up, 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:41.760 and I don't tell Khalil or the other horticulturalists when 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:46.080 to conscript us into the fields for a harvest. It 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:49.000 was late enough in spring that the sun lingered low 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:53.000 in the sky, and I found myself cleaning rifles and 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:57.000 counting bullets, which left me with nothing to do with 0:19:57.040 --> 0:20:00.440 my brain but to run my conversation with Khalil over 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:03.320 and over in my mind. Like I was locked in 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:06.000 the computer room in the basement with a video running 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:09.040 on an endless loop. I could turn my head away, 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:12.760 but I could still hear everything watching a video. Though 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:15.040 I could wait until the sun went down and the 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:18.679 solar stopped and the computer died. There wasn't such an 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:20.320 easy way out of my head. 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:23.959 Done Dun, dun. 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:27.200 What's gonna happen? What's gonna happen to the in between lodge? 0:20:27.280 --> 0:20:29.919 There's people who are maybe attacking it or was it 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:34.199 just the one kid who knowss You'll know? In a 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:36.919 week there were of you go and find this story 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:39.639 and read it elsewhere, like for example, in my book 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:42.200 we Won't Be Here Tomorrow and other stories available from 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:45.760 ak Press, or honestly it's free on tour dot com, 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:49.119 who first published it. But you could also wait for 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:53.120 a week. And Hazel, who helps me pick out the stories, 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:55.359 suggested we do this one this week because it's one 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:57.879 of their favorites and they relate a lot to Aiden 0:20:57.960 --> 0:21:03.200 trying to navigate love and hypervigilance. Quote to quote, Hazel. 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:06.679 I know this one is set during the springtime, but 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:08.520 I hope you enjoy the world building and that the 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:11.720 story still feels on brand for the season, and tune 0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:13.520 back in next week for the second half of the 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:17.000 story as we finish everything that isn't Winter by me, 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:20.840 margor Kiljoy. You can find me online searching my name 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:23.639 on Blue Sky and Instagram. Those are the only social 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:26.440 media as I still have. I dream of the day 0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:29.000 where you go and look and I'm not there because 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:31.960 I've quit, but I haven't yet. And you can also 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:35.199 find me on substack. I have a newsletter there I 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:39.040 post almost every week and almost all the posts are 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:41.680 free and from all of us here at cool Zone. 0:21:41.720 --> 0:21:44.240 We hope you have a cool, good holiday season and 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:46.920 that you stay warm, stay safe, and stay on your 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:50.239 in laws, good sides. Happy Solstice, glad tidings and med 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:53.240 the coming light find you with peace and solace for 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:55.120 the new year. All right bye. 0:21:57.080 --> 0:21:59.040 It could happen here as a production of cool Zone 0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:01.480 Media podcast from cool Zone Media. 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:04.199 Visit our website cool Zonemedia dot com or check us 0:22:04.200 --> 0:22:07.040 out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:09.880 listen to podcasts. You can find sources where it could 0:22:09.880 --> 0:22:13.919 happen here, updated monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:14.840 Thanks for listening.