It has been a while since Solstice took over the Library of the IMIR (see previous posts). Again, a great deal has changed. I have left the IMIR and come to the city to focus on completing “The Record”. As evidence of my migration, here is an image (below) of my shadow in a restaurant. As you can see, the Library remains in my mind, and some part of me is at the table in the workroom.
Mot will stay in the Library, and its stories will have to be continued later. It seems typical of stories that sometimes they are interrupted because of an event that changes the trajectory of the characters, so they never return to their previous pursuits. Some stories remain unfinished as the next story gains prominence.
Here in the city, in the last month, one story has eclipsed all the others. A few weeks ago, a “heat dome” settled over the region. I have brought the Slate from the Library with me, because it helps me to think. In the second image, you can see my chalk diagram of the heat dome. This is not the same as a heat wave. It is a cycle of heat under a high-pressure system that can generate its own weather, including lightning. Researchers say that the heat dome we experienced would not have occurred without human-generated climate change. Over 700 people in the region died from heat in a few days. An entire town burned down just a couple of hours to the East. Hundreds of wildfires still are burning.
In the third image, you can see the impact of the heat on a tree outside my window. I have never before seen green leaves crumple and fall to the ground in the massive volumes you might expect in the Autumn. This tree has many bare branches now, and more dried up leaves are about to fall. I have been trying to water it, but my contribution seems to be insufficient.
So “The Record” will be completed in the midst of a feeling that it is time to abandon all stories other than the story of our struggle with climate change – and this after a year when so many stories were abandoned due to covid.
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