Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Book Club book Club book Club. That's that's how we
Speaker 2: start the show. I've decided it's the Cool Zone Media
Speaker 2: book Club. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, my guest today,
Speaker 2: since the whole format is that I read it to
Speaker 2: someone reads stories to someone from Cool Zone Media. The
Speaker 2: Serene Hi.
Speaker 3: Serene Hi, Margaret, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's the Coolzone Media book Club. Every Sunday,
Speaker 2: I read you different stories, stories that have to do
Speaker 2: with the themes of cool Zone Media and specifically it
Speaker 2: could happen here. I don't know what I'm saying. It's spooky,
Speaker 2: it's not, but the world is spooky. I don't know
Speaker 2: that's true. This story though, this is a like this
Speaker 2: is a posy story.
Speaker 3: Oh I love that for myself and for you and
Speaker 3: for us and for all of you listening.
Speaker 2: That's right. Today we're reading a story by it could
Speaker 2: happen here alumni guest sim Kern, who I believe you interviewed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're awesome. I really respect their work and I'm
Speaker 3: excited to be read one of their stories.
Speaker 2: Yeah. They It's always very weird to be a fiction
Speaker 2: writer and then like also be known for this completely
Speaker 2: unrelated thing, you know, like I don't know to put
Speaker 2: words into Sim's mouth, you know, like like Sim is
Speaker 2: right now doing a lot of really amazing content on
Speaker 2: TikTok and Instagram about Jewish anti Zionism.
Speaker 1: And and on.
Speaker 2: It could happen here also, but it's just like, but
Speaker 2: they also write really amazing stories, and so yeah, we're
Speaker 2: going to read you one. I'm going to read you
Speaker 2: one and sharene is the stand in for you, the listener,
Speaker 2: that is I. This story is called the Lost Roads.
Speaker 2: The years of debate and organizing, planning, in preparation had
Speaker 2: spanned my entire life, But at long last, the Body
Speaker 2: Politic had reached a decision. Demolition Day had arrived, and
Speaker 2: I stood on the front lines. The old world would
Speaker 2: be gouged and shoveled away, ushering in a dazzling future.
Speaker 2: Children would reclaim the freedom of play, beasts of the
Speaker 2: wild would roam once more, and we would liberate the
Speaker 2: earth from her tari strait jacket. I never felt more
Speaker 2: proud in my neon yellow coveralls and matching hard hat
Speaker 2: emblazoned with the badge of the Body Politic. My weapons
Speaker 2: for the battle ahead rested heavy across my shoulder. Pickaxe
Speaker 2: and shovel, simple tools for a simple job. We were cleaners,
Speaker 2: not as venerated as the drivers of the mighty diggers
Speaker 2: who forged ahead, or the pavers with their specialized skills.
Speaker 2: Certainly we weren't as envied as the planters who would
Speaker 2: follow in our wake. Our work was hard and tedious,
Speaker 2: but essential to the operation ahead, and I had volunteered
Speaker 2: for it. Today, on every continent on Earth, teams of
Speaker 2: workers like mine would embark on a multi year mission
Speaker 2: destroy the roads, all of them. My squad was stationed
Speaker 2: in the Buffalo Bayou Settler Reservation in the city formerly
Speaker 2: known as Houston, Texas, on a two lane residential road,
Speaker 2: Calcott Street, the eighteen hundred block. It was a sweltering morning,
Speaker 2: hotter than it had any right to be in early March.
Speaker 2: We had a long way yet to go in cooling
Speaker 2: the climate. But that morning I didn't mind the heat
Speaker 2: because I knew what a start we were making. Cowcutt
Speaker 2: dead ended at a maglev line, and from time to
Speaker 2: time the woosh of a passing train sent a blast
Speaker 2: of welcome wind escaping from its prairie covered tunnel. Miry
Speaker 2: Our squad leader gave a short speech that was more
Speaker 2: instructional than inspirational. When the digger hummed to life, its
Speaker 2: ten foot wheels began to turn, the vicious blades of
Speaker 2: its snout sliced into cracked asphalt like a hot knife
Speaker 2: through butter, and the huge sheets of shattered road lifted,
Speaker 2: twisting towards the sky and clattering down the beast's neck
Speaker 2: into the bin on its back. The roar of it
Speaker 2: was tremendous, and I was glad for the noise canceling
Speaker 2: bud stuck into my ears. We watched it trundle ahead
Speaker 2: of us for half an hour until Mary gave the
Speaker 2: signal that it was safe for us to begin our work.
Speaker 2: The digger only pulled up eighty to eighty five percent
Speaker 2: of the road. The bits scattered behind were left for
Speaker 2: our shovels. We bent to the work, scoop some asphalt,
Speaker 2: then toss it into the drone carts that followed behind us.
Speaker 2: Loyal puppies, scoop toss, scoop toss. If the digger had
Speaker 2: missed a large chunk of road, we pulled out the
Speaker 2: pickaxes or Mary's jackhammer. My earbud played upbeat music, and
Speaker 2: I timed my shoveling to the rhythm. There was such
Speaker 2: joy in scraping the earth clean of rubble. We'd cleared
Speaker 2: a twenty foot stretch of asphalt when I felt a
Speaker 2: hand on my shoulder. Mary shouted over the noise of
Speaker 2: the digger that it had been a half hour time
Speaker 2: for the be squad to swap in. I'd rather keep going,
Speaker 2: I called back. I'm not even tired. Rest Mary commanded warmly.
Speaker 2: It'll be a long day and a longer year ahead.
Speaker 2: I don't want my cleaners getting injured on their first
Speaker 2: day of the job. She was right, of course. I
Speaker 2: rested with the a squad on a moss yard beneath
Speaker 2: a shady elm. The family who lived there came out
Speaker 2: of their house to greet us, bearing lemonade and homemade cookies.
Speaker 2: My first taste of the unexpected perks of working on
Speaker 2: the mission. A long haired child of seven or eight
Speaker 2: with freckled golden brown skin showed me a tray of
Speaker 2: seedlings and an egg carton. You're cleaner's right, the child asked,
Speaker 2: clearly unimpressed by us. I nodded, do you know when
Speaker 2: the planters will be coming first. The pavers have to
Speaker 2: do their work, I said, I know, I know, the
Speaker 2: kid replied, laying paths to the mag left station and
Speaker 2: the bike trails. They rolled their eyes. But when the
Speaker 2: planters come, do you think they'll want to use these? Well,
Speaker 2: that depends, I said, pointing to the seedlings. Are they
Speaker 2: native to this region? Of course, the child cried. I
Speaker 2: got castilia and Davisia zenotheras biciosa, and these are Lupinus texanis,
Speaker 2: prairie fire, primrose and blue bonnets. I confirmed, How beautiful
Speaker 2: they'll look together. Yes, I think there's a very good
Speaker 2: chance the planters will want to use them. The smile
Speaker 2: that lit the kid's face was luminous enough to melt
Speaker 2: any lingering soreness in my muscles. As they drifted away
Speaker 2: to tend to their seedlings, one of their parents, sitting
Speaker 2: a short ways away, leaned towards me. I think you
Speaker 2: just made their month. As we swap names and pronouns,
Speaker 2: the kid's mom never took her eyes off the digger.
Speaker 2: Don't worry, I said, we won't let the kids anywhere
Speaker 2: near the job site. She looked at me for the
Speaker 2: first time. What, No, it's not that it's just well,
Speaker 2: all of it, she laughed apologetically. What will we do
Speaker 2: without ambulances or fire trucks, opal as, epilepsy. You know what,
Speaker 2: if they have a bad fall, there'll be triage cars
Speaker 2: and water tankers running on the Maglev lines, and you're
Speaker 2: right near the station. Emergency services should arrive faster by
Speaker 2: Maglov than they ever did by road. They say that,
Speaker 2: but everything's changing so fast, everywhere, all at once. What
Speaker 2: if they're wrong. Look all your life, you've been living
Speaker 2: with one ton bullets speeding past your house fifty feet
Speaker 2: from your front door. Cars have been the biggest killers
Speaker 2: of kids for a century. Won't it be safer to
Speaker 2: have that gone? I suppose, she said, still twisting the
Speaker 2: hem of her skirt. Her fears served as a reminder
Speaker 2: that the quorum had only been reached by a slim margin.
Speaker 2: Millions of people still opposed our mission. But I couldn't
Speaker 2: stay and convince her because Maria was waving us back
Speaker 2: over to start another shift. By noon, we'd cleared the block,
Speaker 2: and a squad of pavers emerged from the Maglev station
Speaker 2: with a fleet of drones in tow. I would have
Speaker 2: spent so much time watching them work over the next
Speaker 2: year that I could have joined their ranks by the
Speaker 2: end of it. First they'd survey the land with sweeping lasers,
Speaker 2: then they'd stake out the course of their paths. Some
Speaker 2: communities wanted a large paved areas in the middle of
Speaker 2: the block for games or festivals. Still, the footprint of
Speaker 2: paved spaces was always a tiny fraction of the asphalt
Speaker 2: roads we destroyed. And of course the paths weren't for
Speaker 2: cars only people walking, skating, biking, wheeling. Unlike sidewalks of
Speaker 2: old meeting at sharp right angles, the pavers de only
Speaker 2: in curves. From above, their completed paths looked organic, like
Speaker 2: branching veins, each block one leaf, each neighborhood a branch,
Speaker 2: each city a sprawling tree were once there'd been a grid.
Speaker 2: The paving material they poured was a bright green composite
Speaker 2: made from a century's worth of discarded plastic. When dried,
Speaker 2: it had a slight bounce to it, delightful to walk on,
Speaker 2: but hard and smooth enough for wheels. And it was porous,
Speaker 2: so that every precious drop of precipitation soaked through to
Speaker 2: the soil below. At first I envied the respect afforded
Speaker 2: the pavers engineers, all dressed in their smart blue coveralls.
Speaker 2: They commanded so much respect from the folks of the neighborhood,
Speaker 2: but they were officious to us, perpetually frustrated that we
Speaker 2: weren't moving fast enough. They snipped at each other too,
Speaker 2: with none of the intense camaraderie that banded together us cleaners.
Speaker 2: So even if some magic wish could have made me
Speaker 2: an engineer, forget it. I'd rather be a cleaner. But
Speaker 2: the planters, oh I did envy them. I didn't often
Speaker 2: get to see them work, not unless I took a
Speaker 2: stroll during one of my breaks, back to a street
Speaker 2: we'd cleaned weeks before. Botanists, mycologists, bryologists and ediphologists, and
Speaker 2: of course the native land historians they deferred to. In
Speaker 2: bright green work suits, they descend on a street after
Speaker 2: the pavers had poured fresh paths. It was the planter's
Speaker 2: job to restore the ruined soil trapped by asphalt for
Speaker 2: a century. Our work took hours, The pavers work took days,
Speaker 2: but the planter's task would take months or even years.
Speaker 2: Where the soil was saturated with heavy metals. They used
Speaker 2: all kinds of composts, fertilizers, and minerals. But their most
Speaker 2: ingenious allies were living things microbes that devoured microplastics and
Speaker 2: mushrooms that leached pollution from the earth. At superfund sites
Speaker 2: where the land was especially toxic, they displaced residents and
Speaker 2: worked for months in hasmac gear to heal the poisoned earth. Finally,
Speaker 2: the planters would escort drone carts bursting with greenery from
Speaker 2: the maglev station. They'd plant the fruit trees that would
Speaker 2: feed the neighborhood, the shade trees that would cool their homes.
Speaker 2: The trees would take decades to mature, but one day,
Speaker 2: this endless orchard would crisscross the continent, everywhere there'd once
Speaker 2: only been pavement. The promise of that bountiful future had
Speaker 2: captivated the hearts of most everyone on Earth, most but
Speaker 2: not all. Because you know whose hearts it didn't capture,
Speaker 2: sharene Please tell me the people who sponsor this pot
Speaker 2: gath You are cold and heartless. Wait no, wait, that's
Speaker 2: the opposite.
Speaker 1: We love.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're great. Where are the people who we would
Speaker 2: oppose all of this if it disrupted the capitalism that
Speaker 2: provides these goods and services to you, we're totally not,
Speaker 2: just like almost everyone else involved in capitalism at every level,
Speaker 2: cynically and gay with it in order to survive, and
Speaker 2: we're back. We ran into our first protester around two
Speaker 2: o'clock that day, during the last hour of my shift.
Speaker 2: Cleaning was my first job after college, and I'd never
Speaker 2: worked such a heavy day of labor. By midafternoon, my
Speaker 2: muscles were screaming, and I was looking forward to a
Speaker 2: long soak in the solar spring at the bathhouse. Suddenly
Speaker 2: the digger fell silent and it ground to a halt.
Speaker 2: The driver leaned out of his cab, hollering at someone
Speaker 2: up ahead. Cautiously, Mary led us around the side of
Speaker 2: the machine. There, inches from the digger's snout, said an
Speaker 2: old fashioned gasoline powered pickup truck. There were signs painted
Speaker 2: all over the truck the cars are freedom, save the roads,
Speaker 2: resist the stone age. Part of me had to admire
Speaker 2: the guy's courage. The digger could have churned through that
Speaker 2: vehicle with ease, but the driver sat inside the cab,
Speaker 2: arms folded. Mary approached the cab and motioned for the
Speaker 2: driver to roll down the window. She introduced herself and
Speaker 2: he gave his name, Bruce Wellborn. She used his first
Speaker 2: name a lot after that, explaining that we had to
Speaker 2: get back to work. Bruce, give us a break, Bruce,
Speaker 2: and if he didn't like it, he could take it
Speaker 2: up with the body politic. At first, Bruce seemed uncertain,
Speaker 2: darting glances at us nervously. But the longer he talked
Speaker 2: to Miry, the angrier he got. Until his pale skin
Speaker 2: flushed red. He got louder and louder, until he was
Speaker 2: shouting car's rights at the top of his lungs, right
Speaker 2: in her face. I couldn't remember the last time I'd
Speaker 2: seen a grown person totally given over to rage like that.
Speaker 2: My legs felt shaky and my heart art was racing,
Speaker 2: as if he'd been yelling at me. Miry turned to
Speaker 2: walk back to us, and Bruce rolled up his window.
Speaker 2: I envied him the cool a sea that must be
Speaker 2: blowing inside. The sun was blaring down on all our
Speaker 2: heads by then the hottest part of the day. Bruce
Speaker 2: grabbed an ice cold can from the cooler in the
Speaker 2: back seat. The cab was packed with food supplies and
Speaker 2: extra gas tanks. In this heat, he might outlast us
Speaker 2: in his stockpiled truck. I couldn't understand him. Forty thousand
Speaker 2: people got killed in car wrecks every year in our
Speaker 2: country alone. We would free our air of the smog
Speaker 2: that gave so many little kids asthma. We'd replace millions
Speaker 2: of miles of heat trapping asphalt with carbon absorbing orchards,
Speaker 2: restore parking lots to native prairies, and free the concrete
Speaker 2: walled bayous to ramble along rocky shores. Who would want
Speaker 2: to stand or park in the way of all that
Speaker 2: we need to move? Him, Mary said to us. She
Speaker 2: turned and shouted, this is your last chance to drive away, Bruce.
Speaker 2: We're going to continue our work with or without your cooperation.
Speaker 2: Bruce locked his doors and revved his engine in answer.
Speaker 2: My blood ran icy with fear of the thought of
Speaker 2: going anywhere near that truck. What if he tries to
Speaker 2: run us over, I asked, hoping the others wouldn't think
Speaker 2: me a coward. Should we call a violence response team?
Speaker 2: I don't think that's necessary. Mary frowned. It's not like
Speaker 2: he has a gun. If he did, I think he
Speaker 2: would have shown it by now. He's not violent, just annoying,
Speaker 2: as if on cue Bruce cracked his window and shouted,
Speaker 2: try coming near this truck and see what happens. Okay,
Speaker 2: that sounded like a threat, Ermine said, shooting me a look.
Speaker 2: I was glad to have an ally, And it may
Speaker 2: not be a gun, but a truck is a deadly weapon.
Speaker 2: Sage agreed. Fine. Mary's sighed and walking away from the huddle.
Speaker 2: I'll call the VRT. But a few moments later she back,
Speaker 2: no good. She shook her head. They've got hundreds of
Speaker 2: reports of protesters like Bruce here all over the city,
Speaker 2: some of them in big groups. The dispatcher couldn't even
Speaker 2: promise they could get to us by the end of
Speaker 2: the week. Ah, I whispered. I had assumed Bruce was
Speaker 2: alone extremist. But if there were hundreds of blockades in
Speaker 2: our reservation alone, how many people were protesting across the watershed,
Speaker 2: the continent, the world. Could there be enough anti mission
Speaker 2: sentiment to force the body politic back to the debate chambers.
Speaker 2: That could mean years of delays. I echoed Mary's words
Speaker 2: from earlier. We have to move him, ideas, Mary said,
Speaker 2: couldn't the digger just go up on the grass there
Speaker 2: and drive around him? Ernie asked, But then I'll be
Speaker 2: behind us. I pointed out, what if he turns around
Speaker 2: and runs us over? Mary nodded, I want that truck disabled,
Speaker 2: but nothing that'll hurt him or us. I wasn't much
Speaker 2: help in the discussion that followed, as I didn't know
Speaker 2: much about cars. Someone said they'd heard you could just
Speaker 2: say car by blocking the tailpipe with a potato. Mary
Speaker 2: said that was an urban legend. Once the pressure built up,
Speaker 2: the potato would shoot out. Someone else suggested slashing the tires,
Speaker 2: but a bunch of people rolled their eyes and spoke
Speaker 2: over each other, pointing out that a car was slashed
Speaker 2: tires could still accelerate to deadly speed in seconds. We
Speaker 2: could block him in Sage suggested, drive another digger over
Speaker 2: here and park it right on his ass so he
Speaker 2: can't move. Mary wagged a finger in his direction. That
Speaker 2: could work, But then, what how do we take the
Speaker 2: truck out of commission force open the hood. We could
Speaker 2: slice the latch with a reciprocating saw Ermine said, then
Speaker 2: slash the ignition. Mary snapped her fingers. After that, we
Speaker 2: just pick up the truck and move it. You think
Speaker 2: we can lift it, I asked, with another squad. We
Speaker 2: could sage, said. Mary pressed a finger to her ear,
Speaker 2: calling someone on her earbuds. Ten seconds later, two nearby
Speaker 2: cleaning squads strolled up to our location alongside a rumbling digger.
Speaker 2: Bruce shaeh outed, I won't be moved. You can run
Speaker 2: me over. I'll die for my freedoms, but his voice
Speaker 2: wavered as he watched the second digger pull up on
Speaker 2: his tail. I'll disable the truck, Mary said, I don't
Speaker 2: want to risk any of y'all getting hurt. She grabbed
Speaker 2: the electric saw from our toolbox and clambered over the road,
Speaker 2: smashing blades of our digger. Bruce revved his engine threateningly,
Speaker 2: but with a digger's blades an inch from both bumpers,
Speaker 2: he wasn't going anywhere. Mary sliced open Bruce's hood, then
Speaker 2: sawed something inside that made the engine fall silent. It's
Speaker 2: gonna get hot in there, Bruce, Mary called, dangerous hot.
Speaker 2: You want to come out now, Bruce cursed her. We
Speaker 2: spread out on both sides of the truck. Then and
Speaker 2: I got a handhold under the chassis near the driver's
Speaker 2: back wheel. On Mary's signal, we heaved up, with all
Speaker 2: of us lifting together and the truck felt about as
Speaker 2: heavy as a big box of books. We shuffled toward
Speaker 2: the side of the road and set it down gently,
Speaker 2: So gently it gave me this funny, peaceful feeling, like
Speaker 2: we were carrying a sleeping toddler to bed. Then Miry
Speaker 2: called back to work. The digger from the north pulled away,
Speaker 2: and I started in on my last shift. From time
Speaker 2: to time I spared a glance at Bruce. After a
Speaker 2: few minutes, he cracked the door to the cab. It
Speaker 2: must have been over one hundred degrees in there. For
Speaker 2: a while he shouted slogans at us, but his voice
Speaker 2: soon grew hoarse. Sage had streamed our whole encounter with
Speaker 2: Bruce from her lenses, and the vid went viral within
Speaker 2: a few hours. Other squads around the city, then the Watershed,
Speaker 2: then the continent started using the Miry maneuver to deal
Speaker 2: with protest cars until that horrible day March twenty seventh.
Speaker 2: After a few weeks, the car's rights protests were losing steam.
Speaker 2: Most of the protesters had given up or run out
Speaker 2: of cars to protest in, but the most fanatical among
Speaker 2: them grew desperate. On the last Friday in March. Some
Speaker 2: brought guns in their trucks, the kind of a legal,
Speaker 2: powerful guns that people hoarded by the millions at the
Speaker 2: start of the century. Of course, we'd known there were
Speaker 2: still many of them out there, ar fifteen's that had
Speaker 2: been hidden from the smelters. To this day, I can't
Speaker 2: walk past the statue of falling cleaners downtown without sitting
Speaker 2: on a bench a while and fighting back tears. I
Speaker 2: had good friends who were killed that day. I feel
Speaker 2: so guilty and disoriented when I think about how it
Speaker 2: was just random, just a dice roll, that their squads
Speaker 2: got shot up and mine didn't. That I'm only alive
Speaker 2: because Bruce wasn't one of the violent ones. After I
Speaker 2: finished up that first shift, Bruce bowed to the inevitable
Speaker 2: and finally climbed down from his truck. He grabbed only
Speaker 2: the cooler out of the back of the cab, abandoning
Speaker 2: the rest of his supplies and the vehicle itself for
Speaker 2: a sanitation team to deal with. I wound up walking
Speaker 2: back to the maglev station next to him, surprised by
Speaker 2: how small he seemed. With his feet on the ground,
Speaker 2: head hung low, He dragged that cooler over the scraped
Speaker 2: clean earth. You know what, that cooler could have been
Speaker 2: filled with sureen gold gold coins. It could have been
Speaker 2: filled with gold coins like perennial sponsor of the show
Speaker 2: regging gold coins. Do we still get those? Do you think?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I just think it's funny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, me too. And if you too want a cooler
Speaker 2: full of gold, you just listen to these ads, And
Speaker 2: if you don't want to hear ads, subscribe to Cooler
Speaker 2: Zone Media, because then you get all this stuff. Without ads,
Speaker 2: you just get our weird ad breaks and then immediately
Speaker 2: it's my voice going and we're back. Needless to say,
Speaker 2: I found it on Settling ten years later, when my
Speaker 2: Edel developed a fixation with cars, all they wanted from
Speaker 2: the library were books about cars. All the hollow games
Speaker 2: they played were car racers. At nearly ten, I thought
Speaker 2: Edel was getting a little too old to play with toys,
Speaker 2: but they begged me for a toy car. Specifically, they
Speaker 2: wanted a toy car from the Lawndale Orchard Swap. These
Speaker 2: cars had working lights and horns and battery powered engines.
Speaker 2: All the neighborhood kids had one, except Edel. I held
Speaker 2: out for months, weathering Edel's tearful requests. Finally, one morning,
Speaker 2: Sam and I were sitting on the front porch, drinking
Speaker 2: coffee and watching the neighborhood kids playing beneath the citrus grove.
Speaker 2: Edel had gotten hold of a neighbor kid's car and
Speaker 2: was zooming it around like an airplane. Sam must have
Speaker 2: caught me frowning. You know, the more you forbid them,
Speaker 2: the more fascinating you make them. And what if toy
Speaker 2: machine guns came in fashion? Huh would you tell me
Speaker 2: to get Edel's one of those two that's different, and
Speaker 2: you know it, Sam shook her head at me. Watch
Speaker 2: how they play with them. Edel was making engine roaring
Speaker 2: noises and charged at a group of younger kids playing
Speaker 2: with dolls. The little one shrieked delightedly and scattered. It's
Speaker 2: how we used to play with dinosaurs, isn't it. Dinosaurs
Speaker 2: are extinct. There's no harm in glorifying them, I said,
Speaker 2: But there are real people still trying to bring back cars,
Speaker 2: just a handful of extremists, don't you see. Cars are
Speaker 2: dinosaurs to this generation, ancient beasts, extinct monsters. It's natural
Speaker 2: for the kids to be fascinated. It doesn't mean Edel's
Speaker 2: going to grow up to be a car's rights wacko.
Speaker 2: My heart pounded with anger, not at Sam, but at
Speaker 2: the memory of Bruce's face. I'll be damned before I
Speaker 2: get a kid of mine a toy car, I said,
Speaker 2: I don't know about damned Samside, but you're on track
Speaker 2: to destroy your relationship with your kid. The truth of
Speaker 2: that took my breath away. Had been patting myself on
Speaker 2: the back for stubbornness. A wall had sprung up between
Speaker 2: me and Edel. Hugs and tickle fights in morning. Prairie
Speaker 2: walks had vanished, replaced by sullen looks and slammed doors.
Speaker 2: The next Sunday morning, Edel and I boarded a maglev
Speaker 2: the Lawndale Orchard. Most of the swap meat was set
Speaker 2: up in the block's paved square, produced stalls artisan goods
Speaker 2: and homemade medicinals. The toy maker wasn't there, but a
Speaker 2: shop was easy to spot, and Edel took off running
Speaker 2: for it. Unlike most folks who planted natives or grew
Speaker 2: food in every patch of sun, the toy maker kept
Speaker 2: a short lawn of monoculture bermuda grass decorated with hundreds
Speaker 2: of scrap metal and plastic toys. There were pinwheels, whirligigs,
Speaker 2: and a menagerie of mechanical animals that croaked, roared, hopped,
Speaker 2: and slithered. After the delighted kids swarming the yard, a
Speaker 2: paved path led up to a darkened garage, gaping like
Speaker 2: an open mouth that too a relic. Most folks had
Speaker 2: converted their garages into living spaces long ago. The scene
Speaker 2: reminded me of the fable of Hansel and Gretel, except
Speaker 2: instead of luring kids in with candy, this guy used
Speaker 2: tacky little robots. Inside the garage, a ceiling fan stirred
Speaker 2: the dust motes above the tables crowded with hundreds of
Speaker 2: toy vehicles. A toy maker sat at the cluttered work
Speaker 2: bench at the back, a fringe of white hair bent
Speaker 2: to his work, soldering a circuit board at a table
Speaker 2: piled a scrap metal edel ran their hand lovingly over
Speaker 2: the candy colored cars, popping up tiny hoods to inspect
Speaker 2: battery powered engines. Names half remembered from my childhood came
Speaker 2: back to me. Beetle, thunderbird, mustang extinct species. Now we
Speaker 2: traded them back for flesh and blood animals, and good riddance,
Speaker 2: oh this one. Edel reverently picked up a black truck
Speaker 2: with flames painted down the sides and monster truck tires.
Speaker 2: It was the kind of truck that would have had
Speaker 2: a sabotaged exhaust system back in the day, spewing toxic
Speaker 2: clouds of black smoke on purpose. Rolling coal they used
Speaker 2: to call it. But I bit back my sneer, remembering
Speaker 2: Sam's caution, the more you forbid them, the more fascinating
Speaker 2: you make them. I approached the toy maker and back,
Speaker 2: we're looking to swap for this, I said, placing the
Speaker 2: truck on the table. I opened my bag, displaying dozens
Speaker 2: of ripe liquots and a quart of wild rice stored
Speaker 2: in a jar i'd blown and fired myself with the glassworks.
Speaker 2: Is this enough, sure, he said, not even glancing up.
Speaker 2: Leave it over there. He just s were to a
Speaker 2: table piled high with all manner of food and homemade goods.
Speaker 2: Can you tell me the make and model of this truck?
Speaker 2: Adel asked? The man grinned and looked up. That, my dear,
Speaker 2: is a two thousand Ford f one fifty super Cab
Speaker 2: Excel t Edel repeated the name in a reverent whisper.
Speaker 2: I had to fight the urge to grab Edel by
Speaker 2: the hand and drag them out of there. The toymaker
Speaker 2: glanced at me for the first time and narrowed his eyes.
Speaker 2: You've been here before, he said, no, I began, But
Speaker 2: something about the guy snagged in my memory. He was familiar.
Speaker 2: But for a few moments I couldn't place those watery
Speaker 2: blue eyes. I might never have figured it out. The
Speaker 2: neighbor hadn't ducked inside just then shouting just made some
Speaker 2: low quat smoothies. Bruce want one? Bruce? Suddenly I saw
Speaker 2: it his face, ten years younger, wearing a black goateee
Speaker 2: instead of a graying beard. Thanks, I'm all right, the
Speaker 2: toymaker said, got too many myself already. Indeed the table
Speaker 2: was heaped with baskets of the in seasoned loquats. My
Speaker 2: heart started pounding, my blood heating like fire. Bruce, are
Speaker 2: you by any chance? Bruce welborn me at a curious smile.
Speaker 2: Now you have the advantage of me. How do we
Speaker 2: know each other? Demolition day, I said, my voice shaking
Speaker 2: with anger. I was a cleaner. Bruce's face went slack,
Speaker 2: then paled. No swap, he said. Edel let out a
Speaker 2: cry like a herd animal, fighting back the urge to
Speaker 2: punch the guy. I turned to leave instead, No, Bruce said,
Speaker 2: I mean take the truck, no swap, no charge. You
Speaker 2: can have any car you want. Child of a cleaner.
Speaker 2: I took his meaning maliciously, thinking that because I'd been
Speaker 2: a cleaner, he was more eager than ever to corrupt
Speaker 2: my kid with his vehicular idols. Let's go, I grabbed
Speaker 2: Edel's hand. It was a mistake coming here. Edel slipped
Speaker 2: out of my grip and clutched the truck to their chest. Tuta, please,
Speaker 2: it was my mistake, the old toy maker said softly.
Speaker 2: My life was so small back then, and my truck
Speaker 2: a big part of it. I couldn't see, couldn't begin
Speaker 2: to imagine this world you've made. He swept his hands
Speaker 2: towards the garage, opening, the kids squealing with delight at
Speaker 2: the toys clattering in his yard. The bustling swap meet
Speaker 2: in the paved square, and beyond a herd of wild
Speaker 2: horses grazing atop the prairie covered mag left tunnel. I
Speaker 2: was lonely and angry, and I was wrong. I met
Speaker 2: his gaze, still searching for some trick. You expect me
Speaker 2: to believe that you make all this, But you're not
Speaker 2: a car's rights person anymore. Not since the day they
Speaker 2: shot those poor cleaners. I've had nothing to do with
Speaker 2: them since then. He sat down the soldering iron gently. Sure,
Speaker 2: I still love cars, but they're just toys now, aren't
Speaker 2: they toys and relics in a museum Teuta. Edel swung
Speaker 2: my hand, Please can I have the truck? Their eyes
Speaker 2: were wide and pleading, brimming with tears, and again I
Speaker 2: heard Sam's voice in my head. I don't know about damned,
Speaker 2: but you're on track to destroy your relationship with your kid.
Speaker 2: I dropped a bag of food on Bruce's swap table,
Speaker 2: whether he wanted it or not, and Edel squealed and
Speaker 2: danced out of the garage, cradling the monster truck like
Speaker 2: a baby. As we walked back to the mag left station,
Speaker 2: I started feeling embarrassed from my anger. Sternly, I told
Speaker 2: myself that it was the least that Bruce deserved for
Speaker 2: having stood in the way of the mission he'd thrown
Speaker 2: in with those murderous cars. Rights people, even if he
Speaker 2: hadn't pulled a gun's trigger. I hoped it'd be the
Speaker 2: last time I ever saw him. But a few months later,
Speaker 2: it was Edel's birthday and all they wanted was to
Speaker 2: pick out another car a friend for their monster truck.
Speaker 2: So he visited Bruce again, and this time Edel came prepared,
Speaker 2: peppering him with questions about internal combustion engines until he
Speaker 2: unearthed a stack of old magazines for them to take home.
Speaker 2: Edel looked like they had been handed a treasure map,
Speaker 2: and spent weeks rereading the things, gingerly turning the yellowed
Speaker 2: paper on the floor of their room. Then they asked
Speaker 2: Sam to teach them to bake so that they'd be
Speaker 2: able to make their own goodies to swap for more cars.
Speaker 2: After a year, Edel had accumulated more of Bruce's toy
Speaker 2: vehicles than any other kid in the neighborhood. A few times,
Speaker 2: at Sam's encouragement, I tried to talk to Edel about
Speaker 2: why I didn't like cars. I wanted to explain what
Speaker 2: being a cleaner had meant to me, how vicious a
Speaker 2: world full of cars had been, and how I grieved
Speaker 2: for my friends who'd been murdered by cars rights protesters.
Speaker 2: But every time I tried to get the words out,
Speaker 2: I'd wind up stammering and tearing up. Edel would pat
Speaker 2: my cheek, looking a little bored. They'd say, I know, Teuta,
Speaker 2: I know, in a voice so sweet it broke my heart,
Speaker 2: and then they turned back to the city of cars
Speaker 2: they'd lovingly set up on the forest floor. I hoped
Speaker 2: the fascination would pass as Edel grew, but their interest
Speaker 2: only shifted. When they were twelve years old. I found
Speaker 2: Edel crying in the midst of what looked like an explosion,
Speaker 2: A zillion pieces of monster truck scattered around them. They'd
Speaker 2: taken the thing up, drawing careful diagrams at each step,
Speaker 2: but now they couldn't figure out how to put it
Speaker 2: back together together. We collected all the tiny circuit boards
Speaker 2: and screws in a pouch and visited Bruce at the
Speaker 2: next swap meet that day. He took Edel on as
Speaker 2: an apprentice. Other kids went to dance classes, or played
Speaker 2: instruments or sports, but my Edel became a toymaker. Every
Speaker 2: Sunday I'd read a book in that dusty garage while
Speaker 2: Bruce taught Edel to solder circuit boards and install tiny headlights.
Speaker 2: He was always patient and soft spoken, but I never
Speaker 2: let them alone together. I remembered his rage from all
Speaker 2: those years ago, and I never quite trusted that he'd changed.
Speaker 2: It was Edel's idea at sixteen to petition the local
Speaker 2: council for the historical restoration project. To my dismay, the
Speaker 2: project was approved, Edel started riding Maglev trains all over
Speaker 2: the country, scouring scrap metal yards for a tailpipe or
Speaker 2: a passenger side door. They'd haul their findings onto the
Speaker 2: maglove zipping all the way back to the Lawndale station,
Speaker 2: where an ancient Ford truck was gradually taking shape in
Speaker 2: Bruce's yard. When the truck was completed, all the adjoining
Speaker 2: neighborhoods came out to marvel at it, hundreds of people.
Speaker 2: The wheels were blocked so it would never drive anywhere
Speaker 2: or hurt anyone. Still, kids loved climbing up in the cab,
Speaker 2: honking the horn and flicking the turning indicators. The local
Speaker 2: news stations even interviewed Bruce and Edel, watching my kid
Speaker 2: passionately explain their hard work. On the seven PM news.
Speaker 2: Something inside me melted. I let go of the resentment
Speaker 2: I'd been carrying all those years, and my heart swelled
Speaker 2: with an uncomplicated pride for my brilliant kid. Edel soon
Speaker 2: left home to study mechanical engineering and took a job
Speaker 2: improving the efficiency of Maglov lines. They zipped all over
Speaker 2: the continent for work, rarely stopping home for a visit.
Speaker 2: Their absence never stopped feeling like someone had carved a
Speaker 2: hole in my chest. Sundays in particular, felt howlingly empty,
Speaker 2: and one day I stepped off the maglev and at
Speaker 2: Londale Orchard, out of an old habit. My feet took
Speaker 2: me to Bruce's garage. He looked pleasantly surprised, offered me coffee,
Speaker 2: and we sat and watched kids play with his latest creations.
Speaker 2: I filled him in on the latest news from Edel,
Speaker 2: and our talk drifted to the olden days. I was
Speaker 2: surprised to find that there was joy in remembering that
Speaker 2: long gone world with someone else. We named little things
Speaker 2: now extinct, like waiting at a crosswalk, or the smell
Speaker 2: of gasoline, or the sound of passing cars in the rain.
Speaker 2: When I got the call from Bruce's estate manager Edel
Speaker 2: was working on an urgent job on the European continent
Speaker 2: and wouldn't be able to return for at least a month.
Speaker 2: Sam offered to come with me, but she had only
Speaker 2: met Bruce once or twice, so I preferred to go alone.
Speaker 2: Long after his eyesight went and his hands started shaking
Speaker 2: and he could no longer make toys. I continued to
Speaker 2: visit with Bruce most Sundays. Yet no biological family, but
Speaker 2: he was often invited into the homes of neighbors, many
Speaker 2: of whom had grown up plaining with his creations. So
Speaker 2: I was surprised to get the call from his estate
Speaker 2: manager to learn that I was the person entrusted with
Speaker 2: his last request. I just had knee surgery, an old
Speaker 2: injury for my year as a cleaner, so I rode
Speaker 2: a motorized wheelchair on to the Maglev. The appointment with
Speaker 2: the estate manager didn't take long. Leaving his office, I
Speaker 2: cradled an impossibly small wooden box on my lap. Disembarking
Speaker 2: at Calcotte, I found the block transformed beyond recognition. Mature
Speaker 2: Pekan trees shaded a forest floor where once I'd shoveled
Speaker 2: up a road. The path. I drove down, skirted or
Speaker 2: restored stream bed, emptying into a pond choked with lilies.
Speaker 2: Beyond the path disappeared into a blue stream prairie where
Speaker 2: a herd of buffalo grazed among clouds of dragonflies. For
Speaker 2: two hundred years, while this place was named Houston, no
Speaker 2: buffalo had ever visited the shores of Buffalo by you now.
Speaker 2: The herds returned every year from the great Plains up
Speaker 2: north to winter along our mild coast, enriching our soils
Speaker 2: and our souls with their powerful presence. I loved the
Speaker 2: annual festival we threw to celebrate their approach, the children
Speaker 2: running atop the grassy maglev tunnels waving streamers. As the
Speaker 2: first dust clouds appeared on the horizon, I parked my
Speaker 2: chair in the last stretch of shade beside the pond
Speaker 2: in no rush. As dust came on, a secession of
Speaker 2: animals visited the stream, rabbits, ducks, a herd of deer,
Speaker 2: even a fox and her kits. There were two herds
Speaker 2: of human children moving through the area as well, an
Speaker 2: older group and a younger one. They disappear in and
Speaker 2: out of their homes once single family houses now converted
Speaker 2: into multigenerational villas with their quilt like additions, each successive
Speaker 2: room built with different recycled materials. The children laughed and
Speaker 2: called to one another, climbing and jumping from trees. Adults
Speaker 2: tended to use the paths rather than venturing through the
Speaker 2: thick carpet of undergrowth. Sometimes one would stop an asked
Speaker 2: me if I was lost or needed help. I thanked them,
Speaker 2: waving off their slightly condescending concern. A firefly flickered in
Speaker 2: the gloom, and then ten minutes later, thousands the children
Speaker 2: re emerged from their homes, catching the insects and jars
Speaker 2: and playing ghosts in the graveyard. Finally, adults appeared in doorways,
Speaker 2: calling the children to sleep. The moon emerged from the
Speaker 2: tree tops, gilding everything in silver, and still I sat there,
Speaker 2: unable to bring myself to complete my task. At last,
Speaker 2: a deep voice, asking who who are you? Drew my
Speaker 2: eyes up to a break in the canopy, where a
Speaker 2: live oak had been struck by lightning. Its lower branches
Speaker 2: were lush with leaves, but above a blackened trunk scraped
Speaker 2: the sky. A large shadow perched there too, tufted ears
Speaker 2: silhouetted against the indigo sky, a great horned owl. I
Speaker 2: peered through the dark, judging the distance back to the
Speaker 2: maglev station. Was this the right place the a This
Speaker 2: owl seemed to be a good omen close enough. I
Speaker 2: took a deep breath and opened the box, not sure
Speaker 2: what to expect. It was a relief to see a dry,
Speaker 2: crumbly substance, just soil. Fifty years ago, Bruce had parked
Speaker 2: a truck here on an asphalt street because he wanted
Speaker 2: to stop us from tearing up the roads. Now fulfilling
Speaker 2: his last wish, I scattered the composts that had once
Speaker 2: been his body at the base of the lightning struck tree.
Speaker 2: The next rain would dissolve Bruce's matter into the soil,
Speaker 2: where his minerals would be absorbed by the trees, grassroots, fungus,
Speaker 2: and worms. Cycling through the food chain, he'd feed insects, amphibians, owls,
Speaker 2: and squirrels. BlackBerry vine twined through the undergrowth, and I
Speaker 2: hoped Bruce's molecules would find their way there. When those
Speaker 2: berries ripened in midsummer, the kids of the neighborhood would
Speaker 2: be the first to devour them, and in that way,
Speaker 2: Bruce might get a second childhood, or dozens of them.
Speaker 2: These would be childhoods freer and happier than ours had been.
Speaker 2: Buckled as we were into back seats are play trapped
Speaker 2: between strips of sidewalk. These kids would grow up with
Speaker 2: their toes sunk in stream beds, befriending jack rabbits and
Speaker 2: wild horses, beating off the fruits of the land, and
Speaker 2: growing in the loving embrace of a multi species family.
Speaker 2: Their lives stretched ahead, not a paved road to armageddon,
Speaker 2: but a winding path besides the clear stream, where the
Speaker 2: path disappeared behind a copse of blooming dogwoods. The future
Speaker 2: remained a mystery, but whatever lay beyond, these children could
Speaker 2: trust it would be beautiful and free and bursting with life.
Speaker 3: The end, well, that was such a beautiful way to
Speaker 3: build a world. For some reason, I really enjoyed that.
Speaker 3: It was really nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I really, I'm really struck by the the grace
Speaker 2: of it, the earnestness of it, the like mm hm,
Speaker 2: the attempt to understand even as you're like painting, like
Speaker 2: ah's damn angry guys yelling, you know, like it's the
Speaker 2: most like Okay, it's like the most prison abolitionist thing
Speaker 2: I've ever read. It's the most like let's make each
Speaker 2: other better thing, And it also like even has like
Speaker 2: the protagonist also getting needlessly angry, right and like.
Speaker 3: No, you're right. It's every character is whole and complicated
Speaker 3: and has and has afforded grace and I think, I,
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's human. Yeah, it's a very human story.
Speaker 3: I really liked that.
Speaker 2: Thanks, Yeah, I am. I made Ian have to go
Speaker 2: back and cut it out because it cut pieces out
Speaker 2: because I started crying while I was reading it, which
Speaker 2: is like really not what I expected, you know. But
Speaker 2: it's like, I mean, this is like there's almost like
Speaker 2: some of it's like so earnest that I'm almost like, ah,
Speaker 2: I don't know, it was like pretty earnest. And then
Speaker 2: I'm like, that's because this is just kind of what
Speaker 2: I want. Like, even if it's like a little bit
Speaker 2: like it's very utopian, it's very like oh it'll work out, right,
Speaker 2: but it's like, yeah, we need stories that remind us
Speaker 2: that things can get better, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's all like a future where everyone is like
Speaker 3: apocalyptic and struggling and whatever. It's it's a future that
Speaker 3: we can make better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Well I'm gonna read the bio. Sim Kern.
Speaker 2: Sim Kern is the USA Today best selling author of
Speaker 2: The Free People's Village and Indie Next Pick. Their debut
Speaker 2: horror novella, Depart. Depart has an exclamation mark at the end,
Speaker 2: was selected for the Honor List of the twenty twenty
Speaker 2: Otherwise Award, and their short story collection Real Sugar Is
Speaker 2: Hard to Find was hailed in a starred review by
Speaker 2: Publishers Weekly as a urgent but still achingly tender work
Speaker 2: that will wow any reader of speculative fiction. As a journalist,
Speaker 2: they report on petrochemical polluters and drag space billionaires. Sim
Speaker 2: spent ten years teaching English to middle and high schoolers
Speaker 2: in Houston, Texas before shifting to writing full time. Find
Speaker 2: them all over the Internet, but especially on TikTok at
Speaker 2: Sim Kern is SI M K E r N, and
Speaker 2: also find them on It could happen here like a
Speaker 2: couple weeks ago, possibly more. I don't know.
Speaker 4: I really liked them. I'm trying to convince you all
Speaker 4: to have them on more. I mean I want I
Speaker 4: would love to have them on more. I told them
Speaker 4: after we were done, I was I was like, this
Speaker 4: is not the end. Yeah, you're gonna have to come back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're so knowledgeable and I don't know, you can
Speaker 3: tell I feel like with someone's writing style, like the
Speaker 3: maybe earnestness is the word I'm thinking of because you
Speaker 3: kept saying it, but like that's what I mean, Like
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, Like the writing of a
Speaker 3: person really indicates a deeper level of them. Does that
Speaker 3: make sense? Am I making sense? It's been a long day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, you can twelve pm it like it reflects
Speaker 2: something about you know, obviously, like people write in styles
Speaker 2: that are not like you know, you can't tell everything
Speaker 2: about an author based on just like what they write
Speaker 2: or whatever, but you could you could tell something. And
Speaker 2: like you can tell like on the details they focus
Speaker 2: on and what they choose to describe about a person. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it seems awesome and they will definitely be on. It
Speaker 2: could happen here more. But the first episode they were
Speaker 2: on came out a couple of weeks ago about anti Zionism,
Speaker 2: So I would recommend that if you want to listen. Yeah,
Speaker 2: all right, well that's going to do it for book
Speaker 2: Club Cool Zone Media book Club catches next Sunday when
Speaker 2: we read you more stories of the arcane and positive
Speaker 2: and sometimes not positive and all kinds of things. That's
Speaker 2: the official tagline. I got it approved by corporate see
Speaker 2: you all seen.
Speaker 1: It Could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from coal Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 1: cool zonemedia dot com or check us out on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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.