Business as usual

Tig shook her head. “It’s so, so scary. It’s going to be fire and rain, Mom. Storms we can’t deal with, so many people homeless. Not just homeless but placeless. Cities go underwater and then what? You can’t shelter in place anymore when there isn’t a place.”

Willa tucked her hands between her knees and declined to believe these things.

“The Middle East and North Africa are almost out of water. Asia’s underwater. Syria is dystopian, Somalia, Bangladesh, dystopian. Everybody’s getting weather that never happened before. Melting permafrost means we’ve got like, a minute to turn this mess around, or else it’s going to stop us. . . . I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, Mom,” she said quietly. “You and Dad did your best. But all the rules have changed and it’s hard to watch people keep carrying on just the same, like it’s business as usual.”

“All the rules. Really?”

Tig nodded almost imperceptibly, like a seed head bobbing on its stem. She didn’t look at Willa but out at the graves. “People can change their minds about little things, but on the big ones they’d rather die first. A used-up planet scares the piss out of them, after they spent their whole lives thinking the cupboard would never go bare. No offense, Mom, but you’re kind of not that different from Papu. You want a nice house that’s all your own, you want your kids to have more than you did.”

“I’m human, Tig. We live, we consume. I think that’s just how we have to be.”

“Of course you think that. When everybody around you thinks the same way, you can’t even see what you’re believing in.”

—Barbara Kingsolver, Unsheltered

Image: Postcard of Landis Avenue in Vineland, New Jersey, looking east.