The keystone (a dream fragment)
This is also a response to a photo of Erika’s
There is a society of bridge builders and they plan to build them around the world, literally. Stone arches with an engineered Keystone allowing both strength and flexibility to each. This is an engineering feat and not some kind of stunt….Where continental landmasses are closest are the original sitings of these wonders. As research progresses and the underwater terrain found unsuitable whether too deep/rugged or the weather and currents too strong, the plans were altered to make success most probable.
A bridge from Capetown, South Africa to the southern tip of South America then little/shorter bridges from Chile to the Galapagos to NZ to Tonga to Australia (the ice hadn’t completely melted from either pole yet). There was one attempt to plant the end of one bridge in the Antarctic- it sank.
A bridge across the gulf, a bridge to Japan to Siberia. All these bridges wide enough for future transport of goods, services and people.
In the beginning walking, bicycles & carts pulled by animals. The technology to build the bridges required mostly muscle. As steam, diesel became available trains traveled carrying these goods and people.
So where is the drama? The sometimes failure of a part of a bridge while being built. The changes to a world a country, it’s culture? Make explicit that no one nation asked to be connected with all the others.
Some nations once connected wish to disconnect, but that’s not allowed/possible as there are always adjacent countries. Nations who/which want what the bridge brings to them, and what it allows that people to send forth, sell, trade, barter, the bridge is a means of commerce.
A theory, since disproved, that these bridges (there were many places where the bridge joined a landmass and via a highway traversed a nation until a bridge was needed to continue on…) would ‘level the economies’ of the world. Raise all people’s lives up above disease, hunger etc….
In the first century of the completed bridge project, numerous ‘rare or exotic’ diseases rampaged through the world.
This could have been forseen if history had been studied. The European invasion/decimation of Native Americans could have provided the information and prepared the world for what was to come but it didn’t and the world ‘lost’ two thirds of it’s people.
This made those left more dependent on the bridge as the wealthy (who were protected and kept safe by expensive medicines and tremendous efforts of preventative care) needed labor and information and those ‘less fortunate’ needed means and information. The bridge was the global highway of goods and services.
Another effect of the bridges was a homogenizing of language. Once there were fewer people maintaining a dialect or an entire language in the face of the necessity to communicate with everyone, becomes futile 2–4 generations after the plagues (that is what they were) the whole world spoke forms of English; in Asia it was English with Chinese, in Europe it was English English, as it continued to assimilate ‘foreign’ (meaning new) words.
Africa wrestled between French, their own tongues, and English, with either or both. The Latin Americans- Spanglish and The Northern Americans followed suit.
Immigration had been thought a problem. However with too few people and the bridges allowing borders to be secure- why bother? There was no ‘one world’ but the bridges did create a global situation that seemed uniform. Each bridge was of the same basic design. The materials changed only when they were local and all engineering was equal.
Some bridges were decorated (graffiti or community based mural) most were far out to sea and shellfish and algae were the graffiti to be seen.
Were there people who, isolated, maintained a unique way of living? There are always tribes who never came in contact with the bridges but after the plagues the bridges eliminated much of the isolation…..all peoples were needed to sustain life on the planet.
Religion still dominated as both a moral force and a tool for cultural organization. Unlike language, different people preferred various methods of having faith in life, reasons for living/existence.
Values which each nation thought of as universal were revealed to be recalcitrant in their diversity. No one was willing to give credence to another validity/another system of arranging life in their culture.
So, there are still religious wars. Instead of wars over territory or resources which due to the bridges levels of distribution had pretty much eliminated the reasons for….but as groups of one faith moved onto another continent conflicts seemed inevitable. If not seemed they occurred with a depressing regularity.
Equal to that was killing each other, advanced technically. No fisticuffs, duels with swords or pistols, cannons or tanks, missiles, torpedoes — all rendered slowly obsolete by sound weapons. Something you might feel just before it shook your cells apart.
Walking along the bridge it was common enough to come upon a group (4–20 people various ages, sexes) dead their shells intact but insides turned to goo. They were like balloons half filled with water.
Struggle to push them over the side and continue on ~ hoping that whoever killed them won’t do the same to me.
There is a brief moment where you can get away, escape, not die. You can’t hear it but suddenly you are warmer ~ if you feel that jump over the side.
Even landing on land and breaking something (you will have a very bad headache and blurred vision for the rest of the day) is surviving. So far the sound weapon doesn’t seem to work as well pointing down. Gravity? Don’t know, don’t really care just jump.
Is this a story about religion? Hope not and at the moment there’s only set up ~ if this were a film….
maybe 5 minutes worth at most. There’s no starting point. In the dream I watched the bridges begin then as in a dream they were complete , panning to South America and the Galapagos to New Zealand. And then people on the bridge moving country to country as if air travel had not been invented. The bridges looked Roman, big stones and the keystone an emerald green (this is true it was so many days ago).
Seems like years then ages flew by and I look on as though a god or God except I cannot believe.
Not even a monk. A simple man, a simple life. I saw the builders come. We spoke and I, recognizing hubris but not where this version could lead, took to a spot somewhat hidden ~ away.
I hoped that this was wisdom on my part and to the extent that I am still alive while so many are not ~ is that wisdom? I do not know.
There was a story I overheard during the plagues (I was not a hermit- that action led to a different kind of death) that the builders built the diseases….

