Meanderings One.

The promise of warmth drove me toward Los Angeles. I had never been there, and the hatred bred within my Colorado heart to abhor that city needed to be confirmed, or denied. Looking out across that wind-swept desert, stretching out between Grand Junction and the Sierras, filled me with excitement.

What drivel.

The cars made their goings down the highway I lived off of. The slamming of car doors, opening and closing, kept me awake in my drowsy sleep of imperfection - too hot, too cold, somewhere in the middle, but anxious. 

The cars are our protective bubbles. They replaced the horse, whose majesty evolved alongside our own. But now, we had evolved our own mechanical slaves that run on ancient sunlight and come with climate control.  Driving through the Reservation, looking into the expanse of a black and cloudy night, and so little infrastructure, wondering what the car has brought the American Indian - is it the same power as the horse?

I wondered if the Indian selling shoddy jewelry at the gas station was truly in need of a tank of gas. After we drove off into that dry and frigid night, my fingers cracking from the lack of moisture, shame overwhelmed me. I should have given something. But, lacking job and taking this trip on credit and with the hope my new degree would bring a career, we were, ourselves, in the beans-and-rice times.  Yet, here I sat, comfortable in my car-bubble, free from fear of the frigid cold, and that Indian was peddling jewelry for gas. 

I hate myself. 

I hate my culture. My race.

My Programming.

I can’t get his face out of my mind, my fear of him, my shame of where he is, of where I am, because of all those before me have taken. Have, ‘won.’

I could have helped. I should have helped. But years seeing those around me fall to addictions have programmed me to believe most asking for money are asking for fuel, not to feed their protective bubble cars, but to feed their damage with substances that make them forget. I cannot give through channels of peddling and cardboard signs, with that money possibly feeding someone’s need of bottle or powder.

How Imperial.

We drove on, after I tainted their water with my Imperial urine, to defeat the storm that came upon him that night. And I couldn’t spare a tank of gas.

Mountainpeople vs. Invasiverich Part 2.

If the Invasiverich had adapted to the altruistic sense of the Mountainpeople, things would have been different. Had the Invasiverich not introduced the false sense of “those with the most toys win,” their demise wouldn’t have been so gruesome. The Invasiverich saw the mountains as a new opportunity, a new frontier. They loved visiting the quiet communities and longed to experience that community as their own. Their reasons for moving into the rural realm were not without merit, but they failed to adapt to the region, because they could not leave their concrete boxes. Each autumn they would return to their limestone castles and make the money by breaking the backs of the poor. That was the only way they could live in the hills, they thought. They couldn’t make a living in a tiny town, they couldn’t own the property without the enslavement of the many. They wanted to have their cake and eat it, too. And so, each day at their rat race grind, the Invasiverich worked perceptively ‘hard’ to live their mountainlives each spring. They played their game of Marie Antoinette, while all their peers struggled for food, struggled to make rent, enduring days of broken dreams under the feet of their wealthy masters.

The Invasiverich had forgotten that the mountains are not just meadows and deer; they failed to acknowledge the dark side of winter’s bite, of the carnal needs of survival. The Invasiverich had separated themselves from these animalistic tendencies, present in every human being when faced with strife. They failed to understand that the endurance of those they oppressed could only last so long, and that, one day, the Mountainpeople would have enough.

Having spent lifetimes of caste intermarriage, the Invasiverich had become weak of body and frame. They could not endure the carnal winter, but they could enjoy their bodies in the summer sun of mountain skies. The Mountainpeople had no time for play; their bodies were a byproduct of their continual survival and communal cooperation. Wood for winter warmth needed harvesting, and the only way to harvest was with strength of back and bodily girth. The Mountainpeople were as solid as the rocks they lived in, and once awakened, their seething physical might would easily crush any force that came between them and that nature they loved.

The Mountainpeople didn’t believe the Sky stories played across the ionosphere that December in 2012. They figured something was off, that something was manipulated. They had experienced the machinations of the Megarich each summer for decades; they observed the patterns of the Elite, they saw their empty concrete hearts and their failed attempts at filling their gaps. The Invasiverich were more like the deer than the cougar, and the Mountainpeople knew this. They had become weathered like the granite of the peaks, and they knew the difference between true strength and weakness masquerading in the paper facade of money. When the cities were placed under marshal law, the Invasiverich took to their castles in the meadows. They had been planning, they had been stockpiling for this; they knew of the storm before the commonpeople. Their mansion arsenals were great, but their skills in marksmanship lacked as they hadn’t been spending a lifetime seeking food for their table with a gun. Their bars of gold meant nothing to the Mountainpeople, who were more interested in taking in the refugees of the cities than the Invasiverich who oppressed those refugees for so long. The Mountainpeople knew the plight of the cityfolk; they knew their skills would be greater than the elite, and they would unite with them.

The rage of the Mountainpeople came like a blood-red dawn in the dead of winter. Their passion for equality was their purpose, and, united with the refugees, this passion tore into the empty material of the Invasiverich, like rays of sunlight burn through the morning’s fog. The fancy shotguns and AA-12’s belonging to the Invasiverich could hone down the enraged mob, but it couldn’t keep them from the marksmanship of the trophy-hunter, a single rifle shot silencing the hollow concrete heart of the pitiful affluence-hunter. In the end, every Invasiverich finally got the mountain experience they longed for: in every Bourgeoisie death came that final second of carnal survival they missed by avoiding the winters. In that last instant of breath, their concrete hearts were filled with the knowing that experience is greater than wealth.

-----
Lawspeakers were those who memorized, recited, and created the law in Iceland during the Viking era. Goði (pl. Goðar) were the chieftains in Iceland, who often held both secular and priestly power. I am using it in the sense that the oppressors often hold power which feels supernaturally strong to the oppressed, and to get as far as most wealthypersons do, one must become sort of a believer in the materialistic dogmas of our era.

Mountainpeople vs. Invasiverich Part 1.

Once upon a dystopian future, the unspoken American class struggle finally came to a head. The raging civil war began not in the streets of cities, but in the rural West. Not long before the collapse and mockery of Belief played upon the blazing sky, a holographic portrayal of all hopes and fears reinvented on the largest plasma screen the world had, the wealthiest classes sought solace from the Rat Race by buying up mountain property.

The mountains, once a haven for persons who never fit into the concrete boxes of the cities, slowly morphed from a quiet place full of countrywomen and good ol’ boys to a bustling venue of Prada-ladies and import-SUV owners. The unbalanced and unhappy Elite brought their fast-paced Materialism with them, and with that came hikes in property values and a drop in available jobs outside of the service positions.

The Mountainpeople were those who stuck it out through the winters. They didn’t mind cold temperature extremes. Hunting and skiing, fishing and rock climbing was second nature to them, although many could no longer afford the slopes and resort-towns, which were teeming with Bourgeoisie. The Mountainpeople began to get angry, but like the geographic positions they had chosen, it took a lot to move them to act on emotion. Their anger was like a seething volcano, brewing over coffee in the small town cafes where local ranchers and servicepersons would mingle and discuss the changes they had endured. Most of the time, their communities functioned with flawless precision. They came together when the going was tough, and they endured the hard times like the mighty aspen endure harsh winds. The Invasiverich began to encroach upon their communities. At first, the Mountainpeople accepted them, although warily so. Many of the Mountainpeople had also moved into the hills to avoid the noise and hastiness of the cities, but when they came, they didn’t bring the city with them.

The Invasiverich settled like pestilent insects blown in from a foreign ecotone. Their hearts were as empty as the concrete boxes from whence they came, but their pockets were laden with the wealth of profits gained from stepping on the backs of the many. The Mountainpeople were enticed by this bounty, but it soon became apparent that with the money came inevitable segregation. The Invasiverich brought their lawyers with them, and soon began to mutilate the country laws to fit their interests. Millionaires began to be pushed out by billionaires, and whoever had the greater Lawspeaker* was the greater Goði*. The Invasiverich introduced their social Darwinism to the community ecology of the hills, and the ‘fittest will survive’ became the predominant theme, defiling the mountains’ dynamic and endemic diversity like an animal gene defiles a Monsanto seed.

The Mountainpeople had their land taken from them. Properties were deemed ‘condemned,’ ranches that were struggling were foreclosed. Mountainpeople began having to rent from the Invasiverich, or share homes amongst many kindred; they had to move into tiny cities in order to find the work to play and meditate in the hills they so loved. Persons born in small towns were pushed out of their orgin-community by rising costs. The Invasiverich’s houses were emptied with the coming winter weather, and the local economies suffered. Mountainpeople had grown accustomed to believing that they needed the Invasiverich. They adapted to the trickle down of dollars, and because there were no positions left save servitude, this became their daily grind. Serving those who pushed them out. Serving those who bought their land from underneath them, and not knowing what to do to revolt.