arankairon

A hush fell over Jem and I, Amir sat silent as Asa began, "Nietzche wrote as Zarathustra, that God was dead, and because God had died, we were all free. I thought, as a young man, a scholar, before the war, that he was right, that God had died." as he said this, I saw visions of the city, of the war zones, of the hatred that had existed before the time of the American Curtain.

"It was a time of lawlessness, a time of no safety and great threat to all. In the latter part of the twentieth century and the early part of the twenty-first, schools did not focus on the study of psychic and collective unconscious trends. The government had hid that technology for years, or so they say, the truth never came out, nor will it ever, not until another race from far across the fields of space finds us, or until we can find them. But God had died. Gaia told us all that the earth was dying. What would come is what we have now. For all our finery, this is no utopia." he said this, and all of us fell silent with grief. Asa's face now appeared careworn, and in it I saw the war-written wear, and the lonely hopelessness within my heart had been given reason.

Soon though, after our silence, Amir said, "It is human nature to be adaptable, to live on, despite what happens. Asa's own history, is the history of mankind." Jem began to cry. Suddenly a row was heard outside, several people yelling, dogs barking, and soon after the ringing of the warning bell. Avril rushed in and told Amir and Asa to hide, Jem was bewildered, but Amir took her hand and they ran off to some secreted place. I still felt numb, but I prepared myself momentarily for what was to happen. Avril handed me the salve of Buddha, I pasted some under my nose and rushed to the entryway.

As I was nearer to the door, I heard more clearly the sounds of my fellow villagers, "The Russians! The Russians are attacking!" The salve kicked in and I slowly felt my fear abating. I felt great strength come to my being. That is what the salve of Buddha does. Fortunately I had a weapon with me, but only a sword, and the Russians would be armoured and with guns. I had studied wolf-kenning for a very long time, I didn't have the name Iron for nothing. I took one last look at my sadness, and Asa's words, although cleaving my soul, and naming my wound, resounded through my herb-clouded mind, but my resolution was to live on, like Amir had said.

The twin domes of Serenity hold a central position within the outpost. There is a boxlike structure housing the kitchen at the rear of the domes, beyond that a small road and beyond the road bunkhouses and family homes. At the front entrance to the structure there is a large courtyard at the perimeter of which people set up small tables full of wares to barter. There is a large building in which artisans produce the beautifying elements of the outpost beyond the perimeter, the halls of research, my bunkhouse, the teaching building, and the rest of the administrative and creative buildings surround it. Beyond that there are further bunkhouses and family homes, and beyond those, the gardens and the hall of the priests.

Jem and I made the short walk to the hall of the priests, gorgeously decorated with leaded, stained glass, with images of magical herbs and spirits; images of the Buddha and Christ; allegorical stories of our own syncretic philosophy -- all wonderfully luminous. Asa, like his namesake, from the Hebrew meaning doctor, was a spiritual healer and the ancestor of rabbis. He served on the council of elders and was a seeker of visions, and keeper of the great faiths. Amir was a kingly man, who although had no ability to seek visions, kept the scholarly legends intact and well intellectualized within his mind. Asa and Amir were great friends, and known to be very wise.

We rapped at the door in the balm of the evening, the birds were now quiet and deer were no doubt awake making their way around the countryside. At least we still had these simple things. An altar boy of about fifteen, named Avril came to the door and bade us welcome kindly, we told him we were there to see Asa and Amir. We sat in the dim parlour which was lit by oil lamps and hung with gold, patterned draperies. Another name for this place was the Golden Hall. From the windows, the martyr Jesus Christ looked down on us with true empathy, glowing slightly from the setting western sun. There was a peaceful calm within the place, and the kind of austere atmospheric resonance found in old, lost cathedrals of Europe and Mexico despite the humbleness of the bare, earth floor.

I looked down at my brown boots, and at the stained mahogony table with a copy of The Spiral Dance placed upon it. I flipped through a few pages and felt embittered once again, not only because the generations of the past had allowed the world of Nature to sink into near oblivion, but because, as I have mentioned before, it would be only we few who would bring peace back to the universe. Perhaps we were the only remaining children of God. Jem touched my hand as I was reading the book, and looked into my eyes, wistfully. Avril came in again, and looked at us with some curiosity from out of my periphery, then walked forward to us and said to meet the wise men in Amir's study.

The study was decorated with many gifts and trinkets given to Amir for services rendered, weddings performed and guidance given. He greeted us so cheerfully and with such joviality that I felt that I had been being more than excessively morose. Asa was there sitting peacefully smoking a little marijuana from his pipe, which he called the key of knowledge. They invited us to sit down in two, old chairs. Amir then asked what the problem was. I told him, repeating for him the conditions of sleeplessness experienced not only by me, but by others from the village, and my feelings of despair.

Asa smiled, Amir smiled, but in such a way as to feel the gravity of the situation. They spoke to me about the loss of god. Asa placed a small amount of marijuana in his pipe and passed it to Jem and I. We smoked, they talked on. And I began to listen with a calm, rapt attention, that drifted in and out from lucidity, seeing these two holy men as the fountains of wisdom and light that they were, and smoky hallucinations, with my own dark beast of ignorance and doubt preying upon my soul. They told me of a time when god had died.

Dinner is always a great occasion in the Alkali Basin. Everyone from the outpost eats together in the twin domes of the Hall of Serenity. The domes were constructed in 2011 using steel-reinforced, air inflated, concrete dome technology and, put together with an opening between the two to form a connection in which we ate and held our town meetings. The outsides were spray-painted by grafitti artists shortly after they were built. In the time before the war Alkali Basin was a popular attraction for traveling youth who would stay intermittently, enjoy our hospitality and us their pot. The outsides were now a bit corroded, in some places even showing a bit of the steel reinforcement. We have the ability to make cement here, but mining is not a pleasant job and the lack of infrastructure and supplies to construct more and more complex machinery makes it a hard process to complete by hand.

We needed more supplies. We were expanding. There were thirty youth who had not reached a form of proficiency yet through apprenticeship. I and four other teachers were responsible for educating them. Our system worked out well -- the older children educated the younger children, and all were eager to learn from us and the rest of the community. We had enough supplies stockpiled to complete the basics of outpost operation: education; administration; basic production; research; we had some of the finest minds of our time, but these dreams could never be completed on as grand a scale as we hoped. How were we to get to space if we had no space age materials? Thinking of this, I got the sudden sense that our community was doomed, and that we, as we saw ourselves -- humanities greatest hope -- could never fully grow in this post-apocalyptic world. Maybe we were to be like the ancient Chinese, a forbidden enclave closed off to the rest of the world, developing independently, maybe never achieving our ultimate goals, only acheiving it after ragged centuries. Maybe even at the mercy of godless conquorers, given that history would always repeat itself - the societies with the least amount of economy would always have to submit to those with more avarice.

I remembered the struggle native Africans faced as soon as Shell and Chevron - now practically hermetic orders, rumored to teach the ancient disciplines of exploitation to their acolytes - established oil drilling in the Nigerian basin. I often taught it as a lesson to my students as to how history must not repeat itself. The stone-age African communities were economically routed by the wealth-weilding, exploitative, consciousless Western businessmen. The riches of Africa, recently known to be the spiritual cradle of civilization, holding the Creator and all of its wealth and punishment, would be robbed generation after generation. There were only epochs of surrender, until finally the seat of mother nature would break and set loose new and greater plagues upon mankind. The naturally occuring biological weapons created in Africa, would give no help to the African peasantry, only death on massive scale, and those betraying commanders of Russian-armed armies would be the only ill-genes to survive - and as a final insult to mother Africa, even the slime that ruled it since independance would die unless they fed every last penny of their ill-gotten gains back into the American and British laboratories.

This I thought, broodingly, at dinner. I could see the same look on those others whose nights had been spent awake, as I'm sure was on my own. It was a spiritual disease. I felt like we were all fools, with foolish dreams. The children were happy though, the others were happy. And at least I had that liveliness by my side while I was in such a mire. Jem sat with me, looking concerned. She said nothing, I said nothing, but I think my ill-affectedness wore on her. We sat like that for a while even until after dinner, until we were ready to seek out the wise men.

I caught up with Jem today; woke up late, at least I got some sleep. There was a town council meeting last night - a planning session for Halloween. Most of the members of the Academy were there. Our town has one-hundred fifty residents, fifteen are members of the Academy, they form an elder council of sorts like you would find in tribal societies. Our society is very much tribal, we have seen the benefits of a small community without much bureaucracy. Our ancestors -- great-grandfathers, grandfathers and fathers -- have formed this society based on humanistic ideals. We are socialists, we are anarchists, we are communists. We are everything that America would seek to destroy. We are not decadent, but alive with the new information that is constantly available for our grasping. We are children of the creator, we seek to create and seek to explore.

Jem and I worked together in the garden. Our growing season is long, but there is still winter, the ground still freezes in December. She filled me in on the happenings of last nights meeting: Jaret said we should leave things up to the the priests, because Hallows is a sacred meeting of spirit and kin. He said to let them handle the protection of the babes. This interested me because I am the one who teaches the children their histories, and along with my barrack-mates, the sciences, up until they are ready to take apprenticeship with either a scientist, agriculturalist or warrior. There are also many renaissance men, who, like myself, work dutifully on many of the projects within, and sometimes without, Alkali Basin. Our community has almost always been protected from malign spiritual influences, part of it is the concern for the epigenetic factors we take into consideration with a child's upbringing. We are careful about what we expose our children to, what they eat and what they learn. All of our children are healthy. But that health is always at stake around this time of year. Although winters start late, they are generally very cold, and although our community is isolated and we take precautions with our husbandry, disallowing certain animals to mingle with others, and disallowing the too-close relations between man and disease carrying animal, evolution has taken its toll. People in our community are less likely to become ill, through the practice of spiritism, and through the healthfulness of our lifestyle, but bacterial and viral evolution continues.

One of the greatest scourges of WWIII was the implementation of germ-weapons like smallpox and anthrax. Also new drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis and dyptheria were developed, which had devastating affects on the angered and technologically deprived third-world nations. Our scientists have worked on new more advanced anti-bacterial and anti-viral medications, as well as, what is in our community the highly valued practice -- meta-scientific magic. 

"I'm not sure I agree with Jaret. The whole community needs to put forward its energy in order to ensure our safety throughout winter." I said to Jem, sifting through the hydro-fertilized soil bins.
"Most people would agree with you," she began, "but I think we've all been affected by a certain malaise these past few weeks, I don't know what that means."
"Perhaps we should consult the priests?" I asked. I began planting tomato seedlings in the greenhouse.
"That was another issue raised last night, the general sleeplessness and hopelessness that has been coming through our camp in waves." she paused and looked at me.
"But we've eliminated the problems of modern society, we are advancing!" I stopped and looked up worried.
"Many people are disheartened by civilisation's failure, the struggle and hope for our destiny among the stars as it is put, is seen as impossible." After this I remained silent.

Jem has been my friend since childhood, we grew up together, urchin-like and gifted, she learning quickly that her place was in the gardens and with the animals, and myself, quickly interested in the little toy machineries and electronics which were a common gift among both boys and girls. We would work together still, I would patiently explain to her how to fix the tractors, and work with her like today, planting in the greenhouses and orchards, or taking care of the sheep and goats. 

She had always been very sensitive and insightful, very wise and very perceptive. Most people in Alkali Basin, like myself truly believed, a few just went along with things, a few were refugees, but most quickly turned towards our blessed way of life like our small lakeside community held water once poured from the Holy Grail. I knew long ago to trust her instincts, to trust her insight. She was right, there was something going on with the people here, albeit a few, but here the few were regarded as just important as the many and we had to do something about it before our outpost would be destroyed.

"Let us consult the priests." I said finally. She firmly agreed with me, and we are to go this evening, after dinner.

I am writing this from the desk where I do most of my writing and late night work. Usually I am preparing for class the next day, I am a teacher at the school here in camp, but tonight, I can't sleep. Things have been eating at me for the past couple of weeks. The change in barometric pressure is reported to have caused a few cases of insomnia around the camp, I am one of the victims.

Lars is up, although he seems to be coping better, he's whistling.

October has been a very wet month compared to the drought we had in June. It got a little wetter in July and August; September was crisp but this month there has been a deluge. The rain barrels are all half full. Winter promises to be mild. Not that, historically, up until this point, there have been many severe winters in Alkali Basin. It's strange to think that history tells us that during the last ice age the Bering Straight was completely frozen over allowing human migration from the Eurasian continent to North America, now the distance is greater, the ice caps being now impermanent, and the Bering Sea being much much wider than it has ever been.

The Russians now control what used to be Alaska, their cities starlit oil refineries gleaming in the night, their industry kept safe by the orphans of the motherland who had once used Alaska to stage an attack on some of the last remaining industrial resources of America. We should talk about that tomorrow in class. All of the students know well what has happened within the course of my lifetime. What is important now, is what will happen throughout the course of the community's lifetime. Everyone knows the United States used the bomb.

But enough about this.

I get the feeling, like the Academy says, that if we aren't careful, history will repeat itself. But history will. The creator has made us far too curious for that, if only there were easier ways to sublimate anger than turning, ever, to corruptible religion.