Stray Moon: Oasis
by R.M. Stiles
The Asianic boy watched the large fish swim in tight circles
in the small pond. Around it were other smaller fish that would grow and also
become too large for the body of water.
“Grandfather,” the
boy posed, studying the koi pond, “where will we put the big fish? Can we dig
another pond?”
The Grandfather
sighed. He had asked himself that very question three decades ago. The problem
was as old as the Earth, as rhetorical as the long list of riddles in the sage’s
library. There had been no answer then. Where did mankind go when the Earth,
man’s home for so long, was no longer sustainable?
Where else was
there that would support man?
Already the very
air burgeoned with every breath rasped into it, the water rebelling in
nourishing elements, the sky refusing to rain or snow.
The Grandfather
closed his eyes. The answer had come, of course, mercifully bestowed like a
godsend from an unseen, divine hand. A new blue marble had been tossed into the
heavens. Now, it was up to man to catch that elusive bauble of opportunity.
“Perhaps,” the
Grandfather said, opening his weary eyes to the milky-dim sunlight that sifted
through the heavy clouds. “Perhaps not, too. We only have so much potable land,
my child.”
“But we’re rich,”
the boy insisted. He looked around at the spacious home at the fore of their
large lot. The yard and gardens were meticulously trimmed and arranged, showing
off the koi pond to its fullest. In a land devoid of color, now draped in
beiges and dulled gray grasses, the greens, blues, and deep magenta of the
trees seemed especially vibrant.
The boy’s eyes
rested on the colorfully-tiled terra cotta bungalow and sleek bamboo that had
taken careful pruning and guarding to produce. Their home was like a jewel amid
the sand of Asiana.
Indeed, they were
rich; far wealthier than most Asianic peoples, whether mainland or amid the
many isles.
The
boy grinned,
making his eyes nearly disappear into happy slits on his round face. “We’re the
richest family in all Asiana.”
The Grandfather
chuckled. “Not quite,” he said, looking skyward.
Somewhere beyond
that gray-blue sky was a dim sun trying to burn away centuries of pollution and
thickening atmosphere. Centuries that were, according to what the history books
allowed, the turning points of the Industrial Revolution and Reversal
Declination.
“Not quite, but
close,” the old man repeated. Some of the smile left his wrinkled face.
That wealth had
come at a price of flesh and blood, and hope and future.
And of their
precious Uzashi.
~ to be continued.
