Dakota Beacon

Let’s say that you live in a really cold place. Yet lately, winters haven’t been all that brutal. In fact, for about twenty years, the snow pack in your yard has been melting down thinner and thinner during most summers.

One day, a pale, emaciated man with a glued-on expression of torment knocks on your door. After getting him to stop babbling about some pledge that he wants you to take to “The Earth,” he tells you that he has been slipping into your yard and measuring your snow.

The man informs you that your property exhibits “unprecedented warming.” He is sure that it is you, with your disgusting, consumption-obsessed lifestyle, that is causing the snow to melt. You must stop using any technology that might cause “carbon emissions.”

The man offers you an electric skateboard to replace your “pollution-belching traveling machine.”

And you grin a big grin.

As the man lectures, you motion with your index finger over your lips in the symbol for, “Shhhh.” At your signal, the now quieted man follows you into the back yard. Crunching through snow, the two of you arrive at the eastern edge of the property.

Now repeating your every move, the man stoops and focuses on a spot in the glistening snow to which you point. You watch with amusement as the facial expression changes from enlightened torment to confusion.

Still in complete silence, you brush aside a film of snow atop a submerged object that has the man’s undivided attention.

His confusion gives way to horror. Your satisfaction becomes joy.

“Far North Pool Company,” reads the yellowed letters on a faded blue background.

You explain that the property used to belong to your parents. They didn’t have time to clean up all of the pool equipment, like this pump, forty years ago when the winters quickly grew colder and summer warmth dwindled to the point where swimming was no longer comfortable.

“Of course, now with things warming up again,” you offer, “maybe I’ll check into what kind of deal I can get on a new pool.”

The face contorts into torment once again. Muttering, the man walks to his vehicle. Just before closing the door, his face takes on the most twisted smile you’ve ever seen. The man looks at you and whines, “You’d better install a low-emissions pump. Otherwise, we’ll shut you down.”

As the car door closes, you see the man’s eyes glaze over.

He drives away in his green Smart Car with a stylized blue and green logo on the door. Beneath the logo lay the words, “To protect and to serve Mother Earth.”

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© 2010 Chuck Rogér