Small Stories for #SolarPunkSunday
Caroline Hamilton
1>Peddlers
“A peddler (American English) or pedlar (British English) is a door-to-door and/or vendor of goods.”
Long after That Event, when no one remembered what day it was any more, great caravans of cyclists, or peddlers, would travel along the ancient autobahns, ringing bells, flashing many-coloured lights, playing music, making pizza and electricity, seldom stopping, except to swap a battery for flour. And whenever
people gathered to watch them pass by, those days were known as Solarpunk Sundays, though no one
remembers why.
2>Earthship Villages
“Hosting a WebSite on a Disposable Vape”
A deluge preceded That Event. It engulfed coastal areas and swamped low-lying places, yet our ancestors found evidence that there had been earthships even before That Event. They were not all submerged but built and rebuilt in villages that lay inland and at higher altitudes. Earthship villages were situated close to new coastlines and old autobahns, providing food, water, energy, shelter and waste disposal. Made from tyres and earth, they were designed to use the sun to heat the space.
Earthship electricity was made by focusing sunlight on to photovoltaic panels, some of them reclaimed from satellites that fell from orbit, while wind harps powered outdoor lighting at night. When the rains
failed, seawater was carried from the coast by cargo cycle for distillation by sunlight. Windmills provided
flour, and both mill and cycle were often used to generate extra electricity.
E-waste was salvaged from long-buried landfill sites which provided plentiful material to recycle. Disposable vapes were sometimes reused to build internet servers, although they were slow. The VVV (Vital Village Vapeserver) network created larger communities, exchanging weather information, setting up barter agreements and letting villagers know when the cycle caravans would be travelling along nearby autobahns.
3>Forest Gardens
“Once a forest garden becomes established, it requires little or no input and minimal labour, while
continuing to produce harvestable yields.”
Long before That Event, the people had planted forest gardens of nuts, fruits, herbs and many perennials.
Storytellers say that there were picnics and other gatherings to celebrate the bounty of these gardens.
After That Event, the forests were abandoned and forgotten, though no one knows why.
Found by our ancestors, they had become so densely packed, so overgrown that few would venture
within. The storytellers say that those who did go in never left. Feral forever, they lived with squirrels,
sleeping in hammocks they made for themselves from hazel and willow, with pillows of soft moss and, on
waking, they listened to the songs of the wind in the trees and feasted on fruit.
4>Sun Dazed
“The moth simply grazes its proboscis against the skin”
Our ancestors liked to tell their children stories of the people who had come before them and to sing
songs together about what might have happened both before and after That Event, when no one
remembered what day it was any more.
Some said that many of the people were still leaving their earthship villages during the night, long after
That Event, to follow flickering fireflies across the plains. The fireflies led them further and further and
still further, until the sun rose and they came upon grassy glades, whereupon the fireflies fled and the
wanderers sat, beguiled by brightly coloured butterflies that settled upon their fingers and even their
faces, delicately tasting their salty skin. And, as the day grew warm, they watched as wildflowers waved
to the butterflies and to the bees that buzzed amongst them.
After sunset, the fireflies returned, along with moths of many sizes and they too landed on the people,
licking their salt. And so it was that the people forgot any other purpose but to be salt licks for moths and
butterflies and those who did finally return to their earthships arrived clad in fluttering clouds of small
and brilliant wings and chroniclers later debated amongst themselves as to whether the returned
wanderers should be called the Salt Lick Sun Dazed.
5>Moss
“Continued funding and advocacy targeting moss research will not only enhance our understanding but
also contribute to broader climate change mitigation efforts.”
Our ancestors often said that, long after That Event, there were still those who preferred not to live in the
earthship villages. Some built log cabins much further along the ancient autobahns, often in regions where any traditional vegetation would struggle. They used moss to insulate their cabins, built textured green roofs with many varieties of moss, and even used sphagnum moss to dress wounds. During the coldest times, they dried some of this special moss to trade with the peddlers for fully charged batteries. And at night, they gathered together, singing songs to the stars about moss and how it loved to sequester carbon and then they would count the stars and the stars would sing along with them.
6>That Event
“Safe mode is intended to help fix most, if not all, problems within an operating system. It is also widely
used for removing rogue security software.”
TL;DR That Event refers to a period where human lifestyles were switched off and rebooted in safe
mode. Other animals were unaffected.
Some large, unknown body hung between the sun and the planet for an unknown period. The skies were
dark and cloud covered the stars. All clocks, watches and timepieces stopped. Computers stopped. Phones stopped. There was no time. Later the sun returned, as it does after an eclipse. The clocks and computers and phones stayed off.
When the stars reappeared, they were in a very different arrangement. Some said that it looked as if the
night sky had been flipped over and perhaps it had.
Had the direction of the black hole at the centre of our own galaxy flipped?
Maybe so.
End.