Scorch

California, varied and fine, became the 31st state in record time. Dusty Mexican territory, until the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 1848, ending what was known as the Mexican-American war. Gold was discovered just nine days before, in Sutter’s Mill, bringing wealth and population to California. Forty-niners, as the gold seekers were known, came in rushes in 1849 and beyond.

California, Golden Gate Bridge, Lone Pine, and Mount Whitney, the beaches in Oceanside, and the ostentatious Beverly Hills received all of the glory when it was California’s bashful and empty Central Valley that used to feed the world. Almonds, avocados, kiwis, olive oil, pistachios, and grapes. Foods we can all only imagine now.

The seascapes were at one time breathtaking and the drive up to Monterrey on HI way 1, would lead you to John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row.

Yosemite and her peaks could be reached through various circuitous routes, but the 395 was always my favorite. It burns now. The rocks probably still stand, El Cap tall and mighty, half dome cables still in place. What's missing is life on the valley floor.

Southern California, San Ysidro dotted with yellow signs, depicting shadow families running across the border, coming to their promised land, San Diego’s border town. In 1984, the mass shooting took the lives of 21 and injured 19, at the Golden Arches, a precursor to that which happened far too often and partially led to our demise.

California, hot, windy, dry, a culmination of perfect conditions for the fires that raged across the state. Laguna burned in 1970-across the 80 freeway from my house. The Camp fire in 2018, burned down Paradise, eighty-six souls perished and the rains created a mud pit, leaving the town with 10% of its former population.

The fire still creeps. A kind of irreverent hopscotch stealing its way across black concrete, the tenuous barrier between combustion and endurance. Wisps of hot blue and red-yellow flame jump off the El Cajon hills, looking for the right place to land. I remember those days when the green and black garden hoses were at the ready, men standing above us on the wooden shingled rooves, the flowing water symbolic of the hope that this would be enough to defend the wooden houses that would inevitably burn down to a crisp.

Smoke now fills the air, billowing into the sky, replete with ash, remnants of someone’s something landing around us. It chokes the life out of those not lucky enough to have a mask or those who stole them from others, mostly the young and the old, the vulnerable, the meek, fighting for breath they will never again be able to catch.

Behind the house, before the pool and the rows and rows of manufactured aluminum, I could look down on the sea of ice plant, fortifying the steep hill and keeping it in place. We would hike down the trail, manifested by similar treks, past the “No Trespassing” sign, through the culvert, into an adventure. Sketching out the dream of possibility in that empty dirt lot that is now just a burn scar, charred and barren.

Travailing the burn was not easy. The land is not cooperative any longer. If it doesn't take you, those who are known as roamers will, looking for bodies to trade or own or to murder. A life for a mask. That is the real currency these days.

The mask protects those of us that come from below to the above. Hydrogen Cyanide is a killer but lack of oxygen is the true enemy. Oxygenated gas masks were not a popular Amazon item, but those of us who saw the unavoidable coming made sure we had access to the tools that would keep us alive. Some of us now wonder why.

Not many come to the above from below any longer. There is too much chaos. It's a risk many are not willing to take. Many of those who do venture up never make it back down.

But I am on a mission. This mission is my destiny. I am looking for something that could change everything. The locket in the shape of an anatomically correct heart is my reminder. It is the amulet of hope.

The map leading to the stash was found by a wanderer, an earth dweller, above our heads. The wanderers will bring no harm to others or to themselves like those who roam. The wanderers are the scavengers of the earth, pulling together metal and plastic, wood, and tin, and trash and creating useful items that others may trade them for or kill them for.

This wanderer had lived above for a decade, at least, sorting through piles, patiently sorting the useful from that which was not. And in one heaping and stinking and burning trash pile, he found a sacred map, hidden between two solid brass bookends. This wanderer was waiting for this day, for the prophecy to come to light. This map told him the tale of prosperity within the reach of humanity once more.

She studied the map, planning the best course of action. She couldn't think of the future without dwelling on the past. She knew that this opportunity could once again lead the survivors into the land of milk and honey, but how would they prevent this destruction from happening again?

People did not believe the reports or even that which was happening right before their eyes. They would joke about how nice it would be to have sun all year long while the rain forests burned and the glaciers melted. They did not link action and reaction. Pandemics became more frequent, starting with the great COVID purge of 2020. Storm surges, raging fires, the disease wiping out entire populations did not stop the lies and conspiracy. The lobbies were powerful but now they don't have a place in this chaos.

Survival is the mode, anarchy the code. This map was the key to prosperity, but what guarantee was there that access to food and to sustainability would change the way people looked at the earth and their own relationship to it?

She couldn't get lost in hopelessness, she knew that the map and the locket would lead her where forward-thinking minds had stored life in the form of seeds. These seed banks were dotted all over California, and the world. Rare and endangered species held sacred in vaults, hidden well away from the fires and other unnatural disasters caused by the narcissism of human beings. Conservation efforts lead to the ex-situ seed vaults hidden around the world. These vaults are sacred.

She made her way across the scorched and parched land collecting orthodox and recalcitrant seeds from across the state, both edible and non edible varieties, that would be planted below ground, under lights, until the day that they could be planted in the dirt above.

The locket held the reminder, a seed, itself in the shape of a heart, red and glowing, that she received from her mother before the fires consumed the earth. Her mother knew that she would fulfill the destiny of another day.

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