After The Deluge by Chris Carlsson Thanks for downloading After The Deluge. I hope you like it and would love to hear from you. I would also be really appreciative if you felt it worthwhile to throw me a few bucks. One of the curious aspects of this experiment is that I’ve sold about 500 books and had 12,000+ downloads after the first year.The fantasy of all authors is that you might some day make your living as a writer. I’d sure like to! But unless a good chunk of the next 10,000 downloaders all send me $2-10, you can be sure that won’t be the case... keep it in mind if you like the book. You can find a donation button on my website, listed below. © 2004 Chris Carlsson This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial License.To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd- nc/1.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, California 94305, USA. 1st Printing ISBN 0-926664-07-7 Full Enjoyment Books 2844 Folsom Street San Francisco, CA 94110 www.fullenjoymentbooks.com [email protected] www.chriscarlsson.com Cover and maps by Hugh D’Andrade www.hughillustration.com Acknowledgements riting a novel has been a surprising experience.While it is mostly a rather solitary effort, this story would not be finished without the help of many friends, some old Wand some new. Thanks go out to two writers’ retreats that allowed me to hide out from the inces- sant chatter of daily life and see if there was really a novel kicking around in my head. The Mesa Refuge in Pt. Reyes Station, California, gave me two glorious weeks in October 1999, when I first took a stab at creating some of the characters and scenes for After The Deluge. Nearly two years later (Aug.-Sept. 2001), I practically started over when I was blessed with a whole month at Blue Mountain Center in New York’s Adirondacks. I was delighted to make many new friends at both retreats, and look for- ward to future encounters with great anticipation. I give thanks to the readers who gave me the most detailed and useful feedback: Kurt Lipschutz, Elizabeth Creely, Jim Fisher, Daniel Steven Crafts, Laura Lent, Glenn Bachmann, Karen Franklin, Jon Christensen, Hugh D’Andrade, Jeff Mooney, and my parents, Dick and Bente Carlsson. Adam Cornford, Marina Lazzarra, Pete Holloran, Giovanni Maruzzelli and David Rosen gave me crucial encouragement, as did my amazing daughter Francesca Manning. Special thanks to Jim Swanson, my business partner, for all the hours, days, weeks and even months I was able to squeeze out to work on this book. Couldn’t have done it without his holding down the fort in my frequent absence. Special thanks too to Hugh D’Andrade for the maps and the wonderful cover. I’m honored to have his work gracing this book. Lastly, thanks to my love, Mona Caron, for her ongoing enthusiasm for my crack- pot ideas and her warm support and steady encouragement for me to go the extra mile to make things as strong as possible. Mona is a great muse and inspiration; this book is inconceivable without her. All those thanks aside, none of these people should be held accountable for the flaws and inadequacies of this work. Failures in this book are all mine! I did not conceive this book as a blueprint, but more as a stab at describing the world I’d like to wake up into. And I wanted to spin a good enough yarn to transport you, dear reader, into that world with me. Having been involved in radical politics for my entire adult life I felt it necessary that I make some effort to articulate and describe how much better life really could be.Think of it as a starting point for a more detailed discussion rather than a full-fledged “answer.” If you are left wondering, pondering, scratching your head, and trying to answer such questions for yourself, this book will have exceeded my fondest aspirations. —Chris Carlsson,August 25, 2004 iii After the Deluge Map 1 (in the book) iv After the Deluge Map 2 (in the book) v After the Deluge Map 3 (in the book) vi After the Deluge Prologue e picked up a toy car from the desk and turned it upside down. Hard to imag- ine a time of freeways and streets, avenues and lanes, each and every one fully covered in asphalt. Spinning the wheels, he imagined driving, sun-glassed and expressionless. He tossed the toy into a corner. A faded poster caught his eye. He squinted and read “Farewell to the Shoreline” in huge electric blue letters ghosted behind the stacked names of bands, names that meant nothing to him, and the date: June 15, 2031. He swallowed a laugh, wondering if they knew back then it was more than an amphitheatre they were taking leave of. The lid lifted from the gas can without much effort. He spilled a good fourth of the contents just by tipping the can, a wet stain spreading across the floor.Then he soaked the bed, the moth-eaten curtains, saving the perimeter of the room for last.Well, almost last. The room sagged in the center like an old mattress, and made a small lake bed which he gladly filled, backing out and exiting through the window into the darkness outside. The sky betrayed a hint of morning in the east. He untied his skiff and moved through the pre-dawn gloom for 90 endless seconds or so, before retying beside anoth- er nearby house, this one looted long ago, its upstairs mostly stripped bare. Hurrying now, he saturated the room like an old pro, donating the empty can to the elements. His gloves stunk, his nostrils burned. His rubber boots reeked with the evidence, the same fuel that had powered all those vanished movie cars. Trembling with excitement back in the boat, his hands were numb with cold as he pulled off his gloves. He fumbled with several moldy cardboard matches before strik- ing a light. Holding it to one of the gloves, he threw the flaming rubber mitt and incredibly, missed. The glove smacked the wall and sank hissing into the water. “Unbelievable,” he muttered into the void.The second burning glove made it through the window and the room ignited, a ball of heat roiling out the window,almost knock- ing him over. He collapsed in the skiff, his heart racing, pounding in his ears. He retraced his watery route to the first house, glancing over his shoulder to admire his handiwork as flames leapt from the roof behind him. He lit a small rag and threw it through the window. Before the rag hit the floor, the room went off like a bomb, one hot wave of glorious explosive power set free. Blown backwards, he nearly fell into the Bay. He kicked the flipper switch near his foot and the boat churned away from the inferno. He reached into his pants and stroked himself, hardened with excitement, cli- maxing immediately. Wiping up with a rag, he surveyed the fruits of his labor.The smell was intense. He steered his craft out in to the open Bay,still mesmerized by the flames jumping now from roof to roof.After a few minutes more there was nothing to see but smoke in the dawn light. He headed north, his ears still ringing. His face burned. Rubbing his forehead he realized he had no eyebrows. Full daylight now.The gray smoke behind merged harmlessly with the fog that was barely retreating in the face of morning. He was thoroughly, teeth-chatteringly chilled, high on adrenaline and without regret. Looking towards the East Bay, he hoped for sun- light, for warmth and luck. It would be a half hour before the sun cleared the hills. He pointed his boat homeward and decided to bleach his hair. 1 After the Deluge 1. he train was gliding along through endless rows of suburban apartments, but Eric could see water down various streets that led to the Bay. He was two days out of Chicago and he’d read every sign in the car at least a dozen times, from the fire extinguisher to the emergency exit to the toilet and luggage rules. The paintings adorning the train’s walls had interested him at first, but after two days they receded into anonymity. Now Bay waters licked the sides of the train’s causeway, further east hundreds of buildings were semi-submerged in their original locations. Across the Bay rose Oakland. He saw watercraft of every size and shape, skiffs, launches, gondolas, barges. Hundreds of them. Blue skies had emerged from the morning gloom. Pelicans, seagulls, sparrows, hawks, and many others whose names he could not place cavorted, sailed and soared. He spotted wispy gray smoke drifting up a ways off. Some kind of fire. The map of San Francisco appeared on the wall display and a glowing red line indicated the route for the short remainder of the journey.The train station sat in the Bay surrounded by water on three sides. That map is the dew, he thought. His apprehension briefly passed as he enthused about a future in cartography, and contemplated the curious outlines of 22nd century San Francisco.The Bay itself was huge, having spread uphill over urban landscapes in all directions. “Downtown San Francisco, 15 minutes” came the announcement.