creative writing on environmental justice
The Submersible aQuatic Cetacean Communication Robot—professionally known as SQCCR, affectionately known as “Squawker”—splashes into the harbor from the starboard side of the Charlotte’s Web at dawn. A few brilliant, cool drops hit Julia’s skin.
The heat index is already 96 and aiming for the red by ten. What must the dolphins think of the extra three degrees . . .
Nothing at the bottom of the ocean bothers her. Nothing natural, that is. On a repair job in the Bering Sea last month, she encountered a lost Japanese spider crab hiking back to the Pacific, following a straight line of radiant heat from the subsea fiber-optic cable she had been dispatched to splice together at a break point. As she stripped the cut cables, the . . .
When I was little, my parents died trying to reach Lady Luck. My brother Maynard says the journey was hard back then. These days, it’s easier for people to worship at her feet.
What she demands as sacrifice isn’t so straightforward.
“There’s nothing for him in this town.” Maynard’s voice is bitter as he watches Clay skip off to school on his ninth birthday. My nephew . . .
Akari saw the restricted tree first.
Wrestling the Agency’s sleek sedan around the treacherous holes in Zimmerman’s pitted rural driveway held my full attention. We’d passed the mailbox fifteen minutes back, leaving me certain we’d missed a turnoff to the old man’s place—then Akari slapped the dash. “Frank! Pull over!”
Akari snapped off her seatbelt . . .
Khopesh tugs against her harness, ready to go. She’s a good sniffer, food-motivated and eager to work for treats. Like most sniffers, she’s an African giant pouched rat, about as long as my forearm if you don’t include her tail. We’ve been partnered up for almost two months now.
I try not to get attached to sniffers. Handlers often get reassigned, and the rats don’t . . .
(Selected from the field guide left on your nightstand)
Common Raven:
Your favorite bird. There was a big one that lived in the hospital courtyard and, on your good days, I’d take you out to see it.
It is with sorrow that this paper announces the passing of one of our town’s greatest treasures, Wendy “Darling” Marszałek. She died on August 18th, 2081, in her early eighties. Contrary to her frequent predictions, she did not die “crushed under a pile of old tech”; she went peacefully, in her sleep, at her home here in Adden, MO, just a few miles from where she . . .
Dustin picks up the sand dollar and rubs it between his fingers, feels the strange chalkiness of it. He studies the delicate etchings, the five-pointed flower, before putting it in his mouth and closing his eyes. The texture against his tongue. The light salt.
Organics are some of the coolest things left over from the Before Times, and Dustin feels like finding . . .
Arthur Corey owns a small house in Port Charlotte, Florida. It’s bright lemon yellow, with a lawn he’s trying to kill, and a carport with no car, where a glass table gathers bong ash in the shade of seagrapes.
Coccoloba uvifera is more closely related to grapes than he is, but less than oak trees are. It has thick, wide leaves and round, edible, purple fruit that grow . . .
Because of the heavy chop that day, there is no time for a tour.
“You shouldn’t have a problem finding things,” the captain tells me. She’s wearing a neon orange vest over her life jacket and a neon orange beanie crushed atop her head, and the overall effect makes her look like a traffic cone. “You’ve looked at the schematics, right? Well, there’s a manual in there, . . .