PITTSFIELD — from “The Last Drop” a novella
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The Future. The last drop has gone. There is no more oil. Dusty Harkness walks toward New York City from Bennington, Vermont, in a world that seems on its last legs. Not knowing she contains the keys to its future.
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Integral car-free communities are the logical evolution of the metro-migration now underway. The crown of Triadic Philosophy will be iterations of integral car-free cyber- communities on this planet. Remember the triad Reality Ethics Aesthetics
From The Notebook.
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Dusty wondered why she was not in shock.
“It was his decision,” she said aloud. “What happened was right.”
She looked to the side of the road and saw cold ground in the half-light. There were no clouds. But the sky was subdued. It might be mid-morning now. She was not overly cold.
There was a carton with things Dale brought. She pushed along.
“Where are you now, Dale?” she asked.
She walked two steps.
“Me? I’m alone. Still going forward.”
She smiled. She could still think.
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Later, she remembered something she and Frederick talked before he killed himself.
“You are never here,” he said.
“I would not know if I was or not, would I?” Dusty answered.
“Do you have a mind of your own?”
“Oh yes,” Dusty replied. “Oh yes.”
And now, again, she said: “I am moving forward.”
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In downtown Pittsfield, she located the once picturesque headquarters of the Berkshire Eagle. But the paper ws no longer there. It was now located in an ugly brick structure on Church Street. The years when she had written features and editorials as a teen prodigy were over and done. She entered the building and found the newsroom on the first floor. It was empty. No. Wait. There was someone in a far corner.
“Hello,” Dusty said. When no answer came she repeated it. There was a slight movement.
She walked across the room, wondering what to say and who this person was. She could see now. A woman. Older than she. With streaks of white in black hair that fell over her forehead. She was still handsome. The woman made no move and said nothing.
“Hi, I’m Dusty. I used to work here. On Eagle Street,” Dusty said. “A long time ago.”
The woman nodded to an empty chair. Dusty sat. The woman looked at her and said, “What?”
“I walked down from Vermont,” Dusty continued. “There are people here. It almost seems normal.”
The woman responded with a weak, acerbic chuckle. “Go to GE,” she said.
GE was a business that ceased, well before everything else collapsed. It was an unsightly ruin east of town when Dusty was there.
“That’s where we throw the dead,” the woman said.
Dusty saw a light in the woman’s eye that seemed almost triumphant.
“Why?” Dusty replied.
“Too many,” the woman answered. “Don’t be fooled.”
“What’s the matter?”
The woman suppressed a laugh.
“I wouldn’t come any closer,” she warned. “I should have told you sooner.”
“Told me what?”
“We are all dying. We don’t know why. We wait. When one goes, we wheel them off to GE.”
“That’s all you do?”
“That’s all there is to do.”
Dusty stood. She turned. She walked to the door and out of the building. She wheeled “It” to Route Seven. A few people were out walking slowly in the cold.
“Curiosity killed the cat,” Dusty said softly. She pressed on.
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Stephen C. Rose has written a number of books (Fiction/Non-fiction). You can tweet him here.
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