Red Power Dust
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Once upon a time there was a little river town. Zak was recharging his laptop and noticed the wires from the power unit attached to the unit attached to the plug processing energy from the Nebula galaxy was exposed, open and subject to disintegration. Like humanoids. It needed replacing if he was to maintain warp speed through the universe in his space ship.
He went to a taxi stand. It wasn't a taxi stand. It was a place to practice patience as drivers ran around flagging down cycles with passengers yelling "Pen, Going to Pen!"
When the car was full they left. To make more profit the driver, a dark thin man in a frayed t-shirt gave Zak shotgun. The driver arranged yellow pillows in the middle to sit while driving, operating the gas, brake and steering. A woman slept in the driver's seat.
They escaped river city and discovered the one single road under construction.
They bounced, shuddered and sped along red dust roads in waves of tropical heat. The road was holding a convention of road graders, dump trucks, steam rollers, gravel, crushed silver rocks, ruts, canyons, pot holes, detours and red dust. Earthmoving equipment dusted red pressure.
Impatient black glass tinted 4-wheel drivers blasted impatient horns to alleviate boredom and abundance of red dust. Drivers remembered swallowing dust when they were poor, hustling any and all possible economic resources to improve their quality of life.
Red dust obscured Earth. Zak imagined traversing central Africa following herds of zebras and gazelles across the savanna. It was thrilling, this sensation of movement through billowing red dust.
The city was Pen and filled with ink. It's famous for a massive killing field, a museum with photographs of 2.5 million murdered humans and lonely bar hostesses filing their nails waiting for a rich hammer. A miniature Saigon. Groups of cycle men hustled taxi passengers. "Yeah, yeah," they yelled.
He found iOne, a derivation of a fruit called Apple. The young sky shy lady helped him select a new 60W power adapter. It came in a hermetically sealed black box. "This is perfect for my space ship and universal explorations. Thanks."
He paid her in Leaves, a well known and universally accepted form of currency. He went to a used bookstore. The owner was asleep. His son played a virtual reality computer game behind stacks of dusty leaves.
He found three tomes, Lolita, The Orient Express and an unofficial autobiography of Bruce Chatwin, a travel writer. Pen had gleaming pagodas, parks, wide open plazas and historical triumphs in the form of cement people conquering land, sea, and hunger.
He tried to visualize Pen being empty of life. Humans were not allowed to stay in 1975 when a military group invaded. They forced the entire population, maybe a million, to vacate the city. To become peasants. To practice the art of socialism. Nine years before 1984.
War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.
Everyone ran away from the city into the countryside to escape terror, famine, death and execution. He tried to wrap his mind around this historical reality and comprehend the totality. The entire city was deserted and very quiet leaving ghosts and memories. Year Zero!
He saw a very expensive white U.N. jeep on a Pen street. It had a secured flag on its front bumper. The driver wore a bush hat and clean pressed khaki clothing. On the rear of the jeep it said, "World Food Program." Zak didn't see any food. Where's all the food, he wondered.
He went to the fancy Lucky Market supplying the massive N.G.O. population.
"We Have Everything You Need, Want or Desire," sang advertising. Endless aisles of food products waited for foreigner customers. Zak left after 30 seconds and returned to the taxi stand.
The driver hustled passengers. It was a challenge because the cheaper mini-van taxi business was nearby.
The driver sat on his yellow pillows blasting south through red dust, creating a fake orange sunset near wild mountain waterfalls and dense jungles passing emaciated pure white oxen dragging primitive wooden wheeled carts filled with lumber, bamboo, watermelons, red bricks made of red dust, and human cargo wearing colorful red, green, blue, purple Kroma scarves filtering dust from their respiratory system.
Inside the river galaxy he recharged his space craft.
Metta.
