Auntie Sybil’s Solarpunk

Marco Etheridge

Auntie Sybil rocks slow and steady, pushing the rocker with one gnarled foot. Weathered planks creak beneath the stretchers. The old woman draws comfort from this quiet music.

Beyond the covered porch, the world is a soft blur. Her eyesight is almost gone. Thank goodness for her hearing. Nearly a century old, but her ears are sharp. In the now, she hears what she cannot see. Yet when she peers into the past, her vision is as clear as spring water.

Another sound, a counterpoint to the rocking chair. Rain patters onto the ground, singing a song she sees in her mind. Miniature dust clouds blossom as the first drops impact the dry earth. Bamboo sheds tears as raindrops slide down glossy green leaves.

And now the smack of many feet against wet earth. The children race in the rain, screeching and laughing. They pile up the stairs. The planks thump and thunder. Sybil smiles as the swirling herd coalesces around her chair. 

“Hello, Auntie Sybil!”

“It’s raining! We had to run fast. Did you see us running, Auntie?”

“My ears saw you.”

“How can ears see?”

“Don’t be dumb. Auntie has special powers, don’t you, Auntie?”

Sybil’s rasping laughter sounds like dry paper being crumpled.

“Have you kids finished your chores?”

A chorus of yeses fills the porch.

“We fed the fish in the ponds and weeded the garden, too. But now it’s raining.”

“Tell us a story, Auntie. Please?”

“Yes, a story!”

Sybil smiles and reaches into her apron pocket. She pulls a pipe and tobacco pouch out onto her lap and begins filling the pipe. The children wiggle and squirm.

“All right, then. Sit yourselves down.”

She hears the children plop onto the planks like ripe fruit while she tamps the tobacco with her forefinger. Then the rasp of a match head against wood, the flame hovering over the bowl, and the first blossom of smoke puffing out into the moist air. She leans back in the rocking chair and blows a cloud toward the rafters.

“You want a happy story or a scary story?”

“Scary!”

“Yeah, scary please, Auntie.”

“A story about the Ollies.”

“Ha! You peed yourself last time Auntie told about the Ollies.”

“Did not!”

“Did so!”

Auntie Sybil raps her knuckles against the arm of the rocker.

“Settle down, you lot. I will tell you about the Ollies who ruled the world. A long time gone, now. It started when I wasn’t more than six, just a wisp of a girl caught up in the storm.”

“How long ago, Auntie?”

“Ninety years, child. More years than you can probably understand. I was born back in twenty-twenty.”

“Wow! That’s really old!”

“Shush. Let Auntie tell it.”

Sybil puffs her pipe and waits for silence.

“Back then, most folks lived bunched together in big cities. Hard for you kids to imagine, but it’s the truth. They ate packaged food from big stores called supermarkets. Most people owned cars and drove around all by themselves. Such a hunger they had, and not just for food. Folks gobbling everything like there was no tomorrow. They were so hungry, they almost gobbled their own future.”

“What about the Ollies?”

“Shhhhhhhh!”

“Hush, I’m getting to that.”

A pull on the pipe, then a cloud of smoke.

“The Ollies were rich, richer than everyone else in the whole world. There weren’t many of them, but they owned almost everything. The Ollies had giant houses, bigger than anything you kids have ever seen. And that wasn’t half of it. Boats like floating hotels, private airplanes, stuff that’d make your eyes bug out.

“But the Ollies weren’t happy just being rich. They wanted power, too. Greedy, that’s what they were. It got to where the rich men controlled all the business. If you wanted to buy clothes, for instance, you had to buy them from an Ollie. They got richer and you got poorer.”

“Why didn’t folks make their own clothes?”

Auntie Sybil puffs her pipe. Smoke swirls together with her memories. She gropes for words the children might understand.

“Things were a whole lot different back then.”

“Different like how?”

“Well, like I said, the Ollies were powerful. Pretty soon, they owned all the newspapers, and the television, and then they took over the internet. When that happened, the Ollies owned the information. They started telling folks what to think.”

“We heard about the television, Auntie.”

“Sure, the storytellers told about it.”

“Hey, I was telling Auntie.”

“I’m just helping you tell it.”

Auntie Sybil raps her knuckles until they settle again.

“You kids don’t know what it’s like to live scared. I was about ten years old when things started getting ugly. Probably started before that, but I was too young to understand. The Ollies were tricky customers. They liked to keep folks afraid. When people are frightened, see, they don’t think so clear.”

“Why were folks scared?”

“That’s a good question. You can frighten people by switching things around real fast. Keep changing the rules, and folks can’t tell up from down. The Ollies did just that. One day, they said all teachers were good. The next day, they said all teachers are bad. They said, we gotta close the schools. Folks were good one day and bad the next, just because the Ollies said so.”

“But that’s not right, Auntie. Teachers are good.”

“Exactly true, my clever girl. But you’ve got to understand, the Ollies didn’t give a hoot what was true. They told lies to make folks afraid, mostly afraid of each other.  

“Now, I was a pretty smart girl. Even so, it was hard work remembering that people didn’t change from good to bad just because the Ollies said so. But lies are tricky. Say ‘em often enough, and they spread like poison. And that’s just what the Ollies did. Pretty soon, invisible walls sprouted up like weeds, walls made out of lies. Those walls separated people into smaller and smaller groups. And once you’ve got folks afraid of each other, they’re easy to control. It’s sad, but it’s true.”

“I don’t get it. Everybody gets scared sometimes.”

“Yeah, like you’re scared of the big fish in the pond.”

“Am not!”

“You are, I seen you run away.”

“Now, hush. It’s normal to be a bit frightened of something like a big fish. But being scared every day, that’s different. That eats away at folks, makes them dangerous. Take my school, for example. I went to school in a big brick building. Not like you lucky young’uns. Hundreds of kids in just one school, and there were lots of them. 

“Anyway, my favorite teachers started disappearing, one after another. They were good teachers, I knew they were, but they were gone all the same. The Ollies said we needed new teachers and new lessons. They expected every student to think the same way. Kids who didn’t obey got yanked out of regular school and sent to what the Ollies called vocational training.”

“What’s vocation?”

“It means learning a job. Doesn’t sound bad until you know that it really meant keeping kids dumb so they didn’t know enough to fight back. Pretty soon, there were good kids and bad kids. That was another lie, but the Ollies said it over and over until parents started believing it. I lost friends, kids I’d known since kindergarten.”

#

The years blur past in Sybil’s memory. By the time she’d graduated high school, a handful of rich men controlled everything in the world. The oligarchs appointed judges, rigged elections, and chose presidents and prime ministers. They bought and sold the truth. Up became down and black, white.

She was eighteen, and the oligarchs were the most powerful men on the planet. They did not tolerate dissent. Anyone who opposed them found themselves jobless, homeless, or in prison.

Sybil graduated with honors. She might have been at the top of her class had it not been for the mandatory religion and political science courses. In the end, it didn’t matter. Universities had ceased to be an option for students like Sybil. The invisible walls had become real.

#

A small voice draws her back.

“What’s that, child?”

“Your eyes went closed, Auntie. Were you sleeping?”

“No, just drifted off, I guess. Goes with being old.”

“What happened then?”

Auntie Sybil strikes a match. As the pipe smokes to life, she gathers the thread of her tale.

“I grew into a young woman. I was young once, you know. School was done, and there was no chance for more, not for girls like me. So, I trained for a nurse. I needed a job, and there weren’t many nurses. Learned the hard way from doctors and nurses who had been thrown out of the system. By that time, folks had been split into what you might call two groups. There were the Ollies and folks who supported them, and then there were all the poor folks on the wrong side of the tracks, as we used to say.”

“You mean like the tracks for the electric train?”

“Sort of, but back then it meant the difference between them that had and them that didn’t. Folks on the wrong side got sick, of course, but they weren’t allowed to go to the rich people’s hospitals. That’s how the free clinics got started, and that’s where I worked.”

“But that’s not right, Auntie.”

“It sure isn’t, but it happened just the same. Now here’s where the story gets scary. You sure you want to hear it?”

 A chorus of yeses erupts from the children at her feet.

“Very well, but I warned you. Now, the Ollies were the new bosses, and they didn’t listen to anyone. They decided what was right, what people should think, right down to telling folks what they could and couldn’t do with their own bodies. The Ollies turned their back on science because they thought they knew better. They even lied about vaccines, one of the basic tools for keeping folks healthy. Pretty soon, vaccines got scarce or vanished altogether. It was just plain stupidity, and that can be very dangerous.”

“What’s vaccines, Auntie Sybil?”

“Aw, you know. It’s like jabs.”

#

The first plague struck not long after Sybil became a working nurse. Measles, a simple childhood disease, its deadliness forgotten. The virus sliced like a scythe through unvaccinated populations. The first wave killed children. The second cut down adults as well. And for the survivors, the Measles virus left a silent calling card. Their immune system’s memory had been wiped clean, leaving them defenseless against a deadly tidal wave of disease looming on the horizon.

Sybil worked long hours in the makeshift clinic. The doctors and nurses were understaffed, undersupplied, and overwhelmed. The government offered nothing but platitudes. Since a pandemic was not possible under the good guidance of the oligarchs, the state-run media claimed the pandemic didn’t exist or was a myth manufactured by malcontents.

 The caregivers worked and wept. No matter how many tears they shed or how hard they worked, more children died. So many terrible memories of those dark days and always tears.

#

In her memories, Sybil hears the rasping breaths of dying children, the sobs of grief-stricken parents. The mournful sounds become real as she opens her eyes. At her feet, the children are crying. She realizes she’s been telling the story while immersed in memory, past blending to present, and doubling back. Old as she is, time is no longer linear.

A half circle of glistening eyes stares up at her. Those dark days make for a brutal story. No way to sugarcoat it, but she can soften the blow.

“Yes, children, those were horrible times, but we survived. And even though many people died, it was the beginning of the end for the Ollies.”

“Weren’t you scared, Auntie?”

“I was terrified, child. Every minute.”

“Why didn’t you run away?”

Auntie Sybil smiles and leans forward.

“There are times, little one, when you do the job in front of you because there is nothing else you can do.”

“What happened next?”

“You sure you want to hear more?”

Another chorus of yeses punctuated with sniffles.

“The first plague ended, but not before it had killed people all around the world. The sickness killed many folks who grew the food that other people needed. Food became scarce, but more than just food.

“Back then, lots of goods came from far away, things folks used every day. What we call commodities. After the plague, three commodities became scarce. Can you guess which?”

The children squirm and murmur.

“I’ll give you a clue.”

Auntie Sybil waves her hand in front of the children. Smoke trails from her pipe.

“Wait! I know. Tobacco, right, Auntie?”

“Very smart. And the other two? Things you drink that come from far away.”

A susurration, then an urgent hand waving in the air.

“Yes? Figured it out?”

“Coffee, Auntie.”

“Right you are, my smart girl. And what goes along with coffee?”

“Oooh. Tea!”

“Very good. Tobacco, coffee, and tea, three things folks used all the time. Now, the Ollies had everything they needed and more. That made them blind to what regular folks didn’t have. And blindness cost them dear.”

Sybil puffs her pipe and points to the smoke.

“A smoke or a hot drink. Simple things, easy to take for granted until they’re gone. Folks got angry, started raising a fuss. The Ollies ignored those angry voices. Big mistake. Those rich men thought folks would never dare rise against them. But the Ollies were dead wrong.”

“Then people made the Ollies go away, right?”

Sybil shakes her head.

“No, it wasn’t that easy. Angry people took to the streets, marching and shouting. The Ollies sent their police and soldiers, men and women with guns. Men and women who should have known better. 

“When a crowd of angry folks marches up against soldiers with guns, bad things happen. Too many folks shoved too close together. Fear and anger cloud people’s brains. Someone throws a rock. Then the soldiers start shooting. And that’s what happened. Soldiers shooting down their own people. Blood running in the streets. And not just once, children. No, it happened again and again.”

“But Auntie, that’s not right. Police aren’t supposed to shoot the good guys.”

“You’re right, child. Some soldiers and police realized that very thing. They refused to shoot folks who might be their mother or sister. Soldiers joined up with folks fighting the Ollies. The civil war was terrible, children, but what came next was much worse.”

#  

A second pandemic erupted, caused by a mutated influenza unlike anything the world had ever experienced. The virus cut down a population weakened by disease, war, and a lack of vaccines. Death raced around the globe.

By now, Sybil was a veteran nurse, but nothing could have prepared her for the horrors of the new plague. The virus killed rich and poor alike. Mortality rates soared past fifty percent. Hospitals and clinics were overwhelmed. Citizens fled the cities and died on the roads. Those who stayed perished in their homes.

Somehow, Sybil survived the pandemic that killed half the world. Workers stacked the corpses and excavated mass graves. Weeks, then months, became a blur of death. And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the plague itself died away.

Human beings weren’t the only casualties. Governments became empty shells. World trade faltered, then ground to a halt. Financial markets collapsed. The wealth of the surviving oligarchs tumbled like a house of cards. The post-plague world needed farmers, welders, brewers, and teachers. The super-rich were suddenly useless. They did not last long.

A new world emerged from the catastrophe. The plague had unmade a century of technology. Survivors abandoned cities. People migrated to arable land, hoping to grow enough food to survive.

The learning curve was steep, and failure carried a high price. Two hard decades followed, years of shortage, famine, and even starvation. Folks learned quickly, or they died.

Sybil became a senior nurse on a farming commune. The group suffered in those early years, but they worked hard and were lucky. Despite the hardships, the community survived and even prospered.

Her own good fortune blossomed when Sybil met and married Jack. Together, they struggled through the hard times and thrived in the better times that followed.

Sybil’s memories flicker to a stop, leaving a single image.

My dear Jack, decades gone, and I love you still. I’m the last of them, Jack. I outlived our three children, more’s the pity, but I’m surrounded by grandkids and great-grandkids. They call me Auntie Sybil. You should see what the young ones have done. Life is good here. Our hard work bore fruit.

Then, like a spooling film, memory flows, carrying Sybil forward.

Her world became a place of wood and bamboo, grass and stone, water and sunlight. The fragmented infrastructures served no purpose in this new world. Technologies became, by force of circumstance, local and self-sustaining. Wind, water, and sunlight.

Folks traveled on electric carts, pedaled bamboo bicycles, or walked. Cobblers were in high demand. Long days of hard work strengthened bodies and calmed minds.

The remnants of the old world lay everywhere. Whatever could be recycled or repurposed found new life. The rest became junk, a reminder of a terrible past. Scavenging parties raided the dead cities for steel, stone, and glass.

Sybil’s childhood world had disintegrated like a jigsaw puzzle thrown to the winds. As a wife and mother, she worked side-by-side with the others to craft a new way of living. The resulting mosaic was both original and very old.

Yes, a mosaic, all of us, people and ideas pieced together like bits of tile and stone. Some notions worked and some failed. But it was work together or starve alone. Pieces of the puzzle, that’s what we became…

#

The children wiggle and whisper.

“I think Auntie’s sleeping.”

“But she’s still talking. See, her lips are moving.”

“Told you, Auntie has special powers.”

Then a bolder voice, louder.

“Auntie Sybil, are you sleeping?”

The old woman opens her rheumy eyes. She lunges forward, swipes a wizened hand through the air. The children shriek and laugh. Auntie Sybil leans back in her rocking chair, chuckling to herself.

One of the littlest voices squeaks.

“Are you wakes now, Auntie?”

“I wasn’t sleeping, child, I was remembering. When you’re as old as me, it’s hard to tell the difference.”

“Auntie, what’s a moss-ay-ick?”

Sybil drifts back into herself.

Maybe those daft old philosophers were right about time. Or was it the scientists? Yesterday, today, tomorrow, it’s all one great, winding river. I’ve traveled up and down that river, up and back again. And here I am, still floating along. Such a wonderful journey.

“Auntie?”

Sybil pulls back to the half circle of blurred faces.

“The word is mosaic, child. A picture made up of little bits of stone and glass and shell all glued together. Stick your face up close and you can’t see the picture. But when you move back far enough, all those different bits and pieces blend, and then you see the image.”

“Oooh, you mean like on the wall of common hall, the big rainbow, and sun.”

“Exactly right, my smart girl. But mosaic also means little things brought together to form something bigger, something beautiful. Each of you is a little piece of a wonderful mosaic. So are your parents, your brothers and sisters, even old Auntie Sybil. That bigger thing is all around you. Our farms, the fishponds, the bamboo groves, the workshops, all parts of something much larger. And that’s also the end of the scary story and the beginning of another.”

“What do you mean, Auntie?”

“The Ollies are gone, but we must remember them, so we don’t go back to those bad times. The Ollies hated the idea of people being different. They wanted everyone to be the same, act the same, even think the same. Those were terrible years, children. They might come back if we don’t keep telling the stories. You children are the new storytellers. You must promise me you will remember.”

“We will, Auntie, we promise.”

“I’m going to be a storyteller.”

“Me, too!”

Sybil listens to the world beyond the children’s voices. The storm has passed. She leans forward and smiles.

“That’s enough for now. The rain’s gone. You’ve got work to do. Shoo!”

The children groan, but they obey. Sybil listens to the patter of little feet. Then there is only the creak of her rocking chair.