creative writing on environmental justice
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 . . .
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Welcome back to the Reckoning Press Podcast! We surface briefly from hiatus to bring you the last piece of fiction from Reckoning 6, Luke Elliott’s “What Good is a Sad Backhoe?”, read by the author. This is one of the most relentlessly hopeful-in-the-face-of-everything stories in the issue. We are all going to need . . .
Thank you for your straightforward, if curt, query in response to my previous email. I don’t believe your incredulous tone was appropriate, but I understand we’ve all been under a lot of pressure.
My mom once called me a “hopeless lover of lost causes” (I think she intended it to embarrass me) but I’ve basically made a career of my hopeless obsessions. To answer . . .
From space, the planet appeared blue-green and lonely. The Manithan decelerated through re-entry, exchanging speed for heat. I remained stretched in my pressure suit, suffering the shudders. Rajini lay beside me, emitting a series of blinks on the panel across his chest that reassured me the insulation cloaking our chamber was sufficient to withstand the . . .
We were prickling
pine we were humming
horn we were sand
smudged by sea
we were weed wrapped
and swallowed antler crowned
hum of rubythroat before we were
White is not a color is the absence
a result . . .
A granite skull rose from the desert floor,
symbol of our demise,
in the 115 degree searing Egyptian heat.
We took a selfie with the Sphinx
for the fun of it, and titled it,
our seven thousand mile carbon footprint.
And then, we were off to Paris, to dine
near the Spanish Steps, and
post a photo of our dinner on FB.
From Paris to our favorite restaurant . . .
We are not doing anything about it because we have to help our parents pay their mortgage. We are not doing anything about it because the children want dogs to play with. We are not doing anything about it because I cannot stop thinking about a girl I sat and watched at a coffee shop six subway stops away. We are not doing anything because who believes that stuff anyway? . . .
Along the shoreline, the mineral trees have risen from the sea like jeweled hands reaching for the sky. Further out, long branches of coral have joined above the waves, spiraling together into bright red and blue and green—fingers crossed for some imagined future.
Today is the day the world will come. From the window, she can see the media unloading cameras, . . .
海岸線では、鉱物の樹がまるで宝石をちりばめた手のように海から立ち上がり、空に向
かって伸びている。さらにその先では、珊瑚の長い枝が波の上で繋がり、鮮やかな赤や青や
緑に螺旋を描いている。
今日は世界がやってくる日だ。窓から見えるのは、カメラを降ろして取材場所を決めな
がら、彼女の到着を待つ報道陣の姿だ。
漁師たちの船が樹の周りに集まり、網やかごを海に投げ入れるのを見ながら、準備をす
る彼女の隣には夫が立っている。わずか3年前、この海にはかつて地域経済を支えた魚や牡
蠣がいなくなり、生態系は崩壊寸前だった。しかし、彼女が開発した塩水電解法と生物工学
に基づくサンゴ礁の建設は、その状況を一変させた。波の下のどこかで、鉄筋や金網のミネ . . .