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Rod Raglin
a book bubble about
Finding Meaning, Making Sense - An Anthology of Short Stories & Poetry - 2022-2025
Literature & Fiction
Author Insight
Ruin and resilience
Global warming is not only creating more frequent deadly heat domes, it's also melting the polar regions at an alarming rate. The arctic tundra, organic material that has been frozen for eons, is now thawing. Just what lies buried amid this debris and how it will respond to the new environmental conditions is anybody's guess. INVASIVE SPECIES is one of the short stories in Finding Meaning, Making Sense, An Anthology of Short Stories and Poems, 2022 – 2025, that includes the section, The Environment, stories and poems of hope and horror, and ruin and resilience. Now available in e-book and paperback at https://www/amazon.com/-/e/B003DS6LEU
Book Excerpt
Finding Meaning, Making Sense - An Anthology of Short Stories & Poetry - 2022-2025
“So, Leonard, we want to start searching right away,” Brad said. “Can you tell me where you last saw Miki and Kalu.”“We followed the river north and then veered west to Shultz Lake. It was very hot, the tundra soft and the going very slow even for ATV’s. After two days we’d only gone maybe a hundred kilometres. No Cariboo, but that next afternoon we started to smell something very bad, like rotting meat. We went up a rise to see if we could see the source of the stench and on the far side of the shallow valley, we saw a wall of green.“A wall of green?” Tuli said. The tundra in the summer was quite beautiful but the colours were muted russets and amber with the occasional flash of Purple Saxifrage or pale-yellow Arctic Poppy.“It was hard to tell from far away how high it was,” Leonard said, “but it covered the opposite slope and most of the gulley below.”“Is this where you last saw them?” Cpl. Hemming was getting impatientLeonard continued, seemingly unaware of the urgency. “Miki said the land was cursed and the smell was the rotting souls of the dead. We decided to rest for a few hours on the high ground where the wind made the smell not so bad and then head back. There were no birds, not even any no-see-ums,” he said, looking directly at Tuli.“No bugs?” Tuli was amazed. In the summer, mosquitos and black flies appear in thick clouds, are aggressive, and persistent. You needed to wear a head net, full bug jacket, and apply repellent especially out on the tundra.The officer stood up. “Look, Leonard. I’ve got a bush pilot ready to go out as soon as I can give him some coordinates. You want to save your friends, don’t you?”“Save them?” Leonard said. “They’re dead.”Hemmings stiffened. “Dead? How?”Leonard trembled and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, sipped some tea, then continued.“We woke up after only a couple of hours of sleep and were frightened at how close the green wall was. When we went to sleep, it was at least a mile away and now it threatened to surround us. We left everything, jumped on our ATV’s and took off.”“Forget the green wall, Leonard. Tell me happened to Miki and Kalu?”Leonard wouldn’t be rushed. He seemed to have to unburden himself and that meant telling the entire story.“As I sped down the hill, I could see the green wall, a tangle of thick stocks with spiked thorns and dense leaves, closing in. Rope-like vines waved and twisted above the wall like snakes. The air was filled with white fluff like, dandelion seeds and the stench made my eyes water. The fluff stuck to my tears and made it difficult to see.” He rubbed his eyes with his fist remembering. “I was at the rear with Miki leading and Kalu close behind. I don’t know what happened, maybe Miki was blinded, but he lost control, flipped over and was thrown off the ATV. Kalu ran into his vehicle, it rolled and pinned him beneath it.“I slammed on the brakes and ran toward Miki who was staggering to his feet. As I approached, I saw vines lash out of the green, loop around his neck and body and drag him back toward the wall. I tried to pull them off, but they were strong like heavy rope, and they fought back whipping at my body and face and coiling around my arms. They burned my skin like nettles only a thousand times worse.” Leonard held up his bandage hands and forearms “I finally freed my arms, but I couldn’t save Miki who disappeared into the wall. I ran over to Kalu, but I could see he was dead. Broken neck. There was nothing I could do, the wall was closing in, sending out roots like claws.”The story ended. The hunter looked wild eyed and flushed. The began to rock back and forth. His sister got up and put her arm around him. No one spoke for a minute. Two minutes.
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