FICTION
KARUNA EBERL
FLYOVER COUNTRY
Her next door neighbor indulges in God and combustion engines. He decorates the tailgates of his couple dozen cars and trucks with crucifixes made from red duct tape. She’s been told he considers these vehicles his assets, which he will sell or use for barter when the collapse of civilization comes around.
Personally, she subscribes to science. But if there is a god, to her it exists in the view across the valley from their homes, where broad swaths of gold and orange aspens drape the mountain flanks; and as the season’s first snow dusts craggy, mist-shrouded granite, each leaf slowly sacrifices its photosyntheses, before recycling its nutrients as a gift to the soil.
Every day when her neighbor leaves his house, regardless of which asset he’s chosen to drive, he smashes down the gas pedal causing partially combusted fossil-fuels to escape with the broken howl of a donkey. This discordance is due partly to his signature style of driving, but mostly because he’s removed all of his catalytic converters — not to sell, he insists (that’s just a side benefit). No, he removes them because God suggested it. In his interpretation of His gospel, he’s
found reassurance that He will come back soon and fix the atmosphere, therefore, in the meantime, he is free to contaminate it.
She doesn’t not believe in greater powers. It’s mind-blowing to her that our planet is perfectly placed in the solar system to foster life, and that Earth’s axis is 23.5 degrees askew, which prompts those aspens to change color once a year. What seems downright miraculous is the atmosphere, which despite having a mass one-millionth that of the planet, keeps the water in liquid form and the temperatures pleasant enough for a post-sermon Sunday barbecue — all while we hurl through space at 67,000 miles per hour.
She sees how one might attribute all of that to a higher power. But she doesn’t imagine any god would be solely focused on our arrogant species, much less be okay with us ruining this magic for all of our millions of Earth cousins, like reticulated giraffes and desert kangaroo rats, giant sequoias and yellow morel mushrooms.
But all of those creatures exist far beyond the borders of this speck of a town. And in the dry season, when the air is laden with dust from the plows and haze from far-off forests ablaze, on those days when you can’t see the hope of the mountains, it’s easy to feel like the world ends just four blocks to the east and four blocks to the north. It’s easy to feel the frustration of insignificance.
But right now it’s January, and the thermometer reads -14 degrees Fahrenheit. Too cold to bother with any of it. Too cold to get out from under the blankets to look out the window. Too cold even for the town dogs to bark.
In three weeks, it will still be cold. But that’s when hope springs anew. The chatter of migrating cranes will be heard overhead; and just as old cars and Jesus have brought him solace, so shall the travel of the Earth around the sun bring to her.
Karuna Eberl writes articles and literary nonfiction, with a focus on nature, place, conservation, and history. Her credits include Cold Mountain Review, the BBC, National Parks, Atlas Obscura, and others. She has co-authored an award-winning Florida Keys guidebook and a children’s book about the Everglades. She has also produced a number of indie films, written for TV series including National Geographic, and directed the The Guerrero Project, a documentary about the search for a sunken slave ship. https://www.naturerising.world/, https://www.wanderingdogcreations.com/
