Smoke heard the shift from what seemed to be memorized scripture, chanted and formal, to whispered supplications, or so he assumed.  Looking about him he saw that he was draped, in large part trapped, beneath some sort of animal skins.  They were heavy and he struggled to get his arms free.

He regretted it almost immediately.  The cold was bracing and his body was sore.  Still, it seemed, against all odds, nothing was broken, only bruised and abraded.  Thankfully he had always healed faster than most men.

The light dimmed and White Hands shuffled into the room, hood pulled down over his face.  Of more interest to Smoke, he held a shell for a bowl and a small jug.  “Amazing, it seems you will live, young man.”

“Is that for me?” Smoke gestured toward the implements in the white hands.

“Indeed yes.  I apologize, there is little enough of comfort here. . .”

As he took the shell-bowl and jug he saw that the white hands were torn and the palms and fingertips bruised, “Thank you, not just for this, but for my life too.” 

“No no, God be praised, not I.  He saved you, cast you up like Jonah.”

“Still here I am,” He drank deeply draining the little jug only slightly disappointed that it was water instead of something more bracing. “And beyond my life I have to say that thirst was ready to do for me, so thanks for my life once again.”

White Hands chuckled, reaching up he threw back his hood, and then sat down across from Smoke with a sigh, “I can only give you a bit of fish and some greens, but as to the water, it is really the only thing that this island receives in abundance.”

Smoke eyed the little man, appraising.  “So why then did you come here?”

“Ah that,” White Hands chuckled, “well it seems that the Lord would have it no other way.  I’ve tried to leave again dozens of times, but here I remain.”  The little man returned Smoke’s gaze, “Perhaps a better question for us both is why have you come here?”

I have been bothered by our economy for some time. Granted, I’m not an economist, a policy maker, or even particularily well educated, still, it seems to me that wealth creation must involve the finding and securing of resources, the refining of resources, and the creation of some useful item or at least desired item. This seems to be an idea that is not shared by the leaders of our country.

I think that people and organizations unfriendly to the United States or at very least unfriendly to our way of life have been agressively obstructing the securing of resources and for whatever reason we have fallen farther and farther behind in manufacturing the items that we use and therefore need.

Ultimately we need food, water, and shelter. As Americans we have become accustomed to having private transportation and a ready and varied supply of entertainments. The first things truly are necessary, but the other two things seem culturally to be very nearly so.

But that is today, and what I want to talk about how the past is similar to today or perhaps to America in its golden age.

In the past, golden ages involved a surplus of items necessary for sustaining life. Usually it was easy to get these things, long fruitful growing seasons securing abundance of food, unexploited raw materials, items that may not have had a use in the past, that could be gathered without difficulty, water running near by, easily aquired and reliably abundant.

These are things that may not be long so easily found for Americans. As such, unless we can develop means to create abundance again, we are leaving a golden age for a darker period.

In fiction as in real life, as we see from history, we remember the golden times. Perhaps there is time for such entertainments as remembering, perhaps artistic elements can grow and amplify, from abundance, the lives of folk who can spend their time being heroic without being forced to scrape for sustainence.

Yet perhaps these are the times that are truely the most heroic, when men must be more than they are at other times. Art is not reality, it pretends it is. Securing bare survival isn’t the stuff of legend, but if there is no survival then there can be no story either.

What a mess. I’m going to post this. I will be so humilated to see this drek I will be forced to revise and improve it. Forgive me dear reader.

LSO