Acid Rain by R.D Rhodes (ebook reader txt) 📕

the woodpile and threw it on. He bent low, bringing his face close, and blew. A flame kicked up and quickly spread, and he opened the lid of the cooking pot and poured in the coffee.

He handed us each a blue mug and sat down with us. His back straight. His chest puffed out as he watched the fire.

The ceiling fluttered gently in the wind. Snow swept in from the right to land in its shadow. The smoke drifted up through the bright hole above us. It was like looking up into a spaceship.

Harry smiled warmly at me. I no longer felt nervous either. “You’ve got it set up real good,” I admired. “But why did you come here?”

Alex kept his eyes on the fire. “I just needed to get out, to be honest.” He scratched his beard, then glanced quickly at me. “I’m, um, a bit of a survivalist as well.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Like Bear Grylls? Or Ray Mears?” Harry smiled widely, looking at me.

Alex watched our exchange, not getting the inner joke. He smiled anyway. “Ray Mears, I guess. I just, you know, like to be ready. Just in case.”

“Ready for what?” Harry asked.

“The end.” Alex explained, with a straight face.

Harry laughed. Then Alex laughed too. And I could see that they were both at ease with each other already. “Smart.” Harry said. “You’re certainly prepared anyway.”

Alex stood up. “Yous hungry? Want any bread? Or soup?”

“I’m okay.” I said.

Harry shook his head. “No thanks, mate.”

Alex reached for the pot and slipped the handle across the pole and out. He poured the steaming dandelion coffee into our mugs.

I blew, and took a sip of the dark brown drink. “It’s good.”

“It’s really good.” Harry praised.

“Told you.” Alex smiled.

We drunk it slowly. It was nutty. Bitter. It really did taste like coffee.

“You were saying?” Harry asked.

Alex looked at him, and acknowledged his meaning. “Well, it only takes one big wave, or one big solar flare and the national grid is down. If the grid goes down, technology is out. It’ll be chaos.”

“We’ll all be headless chickens.” Harry agreed.

“I think it’s great,” I said, “what you’re doing. But what do eat? You must still go shopping?”

“Well, yeah. You can’t live off the land here. There’s no meat. I fish, but that loch is a bit sparse. So yeah, I go shopping once every two weeks or so. But what about yous? Why did you choose here? How long are yous staying?”

“Because it’s beautiful.” Harry gestured towards the loch at the back of the break in the trees, and the white canopy above it. “We just wanted to come out for a while. Don’t know how long for yet. Maybe till Spring. It’s just so natural here. So pristine.”

Alex nodded. But his face momentarily screwed up.

“What was that look?” I said. “You don’t think so?”

“Well, yeah…It is one of the best conserved glens. But a lot of this is regeneration. And planted. It’s not so pristine.”

“Really?” This time it was Harry’s eyes that narrowed.

“Yeah.” Alex sipped his coffee, “Re-planted years ago. And still being replanted further up. There’s a guy called Alan Featherstone. Amazing guy. So inspiring. One of my heroes. He runs a charity called Trees for Life. Set it up about twenty years ago to preserve the old Caledonian forest. And he started it here. So a lot of this glen is down to him.”

Harry couldn’t hide his surprise. I struggled as well. “A lot of this is restored?”

“Yeah. Sure. You can tell there’s loads of ancient trees here, but yeah, they’ve been saved. And the younger ones have only been able to grow because of the deer fences and stuff they put up originally, before they took them away again. I’ve been on one of their volunteer conservation weeks, myself.”

“When?” I asked.

“About two years ago.”

The ceiling billowed in a sudden gust. This glen. The trees I’d been speaking to. The energy I’d felt in this place. It was only because this charity he was talking about had saved it! I had no reason to doubt him. His expensive-ish full regalia outdoor clothes, bushy frontiersman beard, his big arms- I could imagine him out on the hills, planting trees. Alex seemed to be in his element here, his brown Autumnal eyes at ease next to his fire, with his self-collected coffee. “So, do you do a lot of volunteering?” I asked him.

He picked up his stoking stick and gave the fire a prod. “Yeah. Quite a bit.” The flames kicked up with a snap and crackle. “I don’t like working for money.” He muttered, almost to himself.

“How come?” Harry asked.

“It’s just a pain. And it doesn’t feel right. I hate money.” His face tightened as he stabbed the fire again. “It feels like I’m doing it against my will.  But when I volunteer, and give my time up, and get a genuine thanks for doing something, it feels so much better than getting paid for it. That’s just how I feel. The only work I like to do is the work I would do for free.”

“You’re a Thoreau fan, too?” I said, in a higher pitch than I intended.

He looked at me, confused. “No. Who’s he?”

“Oh. He’s one of the greatest people who ever lived.” I said. “A total genius. Lived about, what? One hundred and fifty years ago?” I glanced at Harry and he nodded. “He went to the forest and lived in a log cabin. And he wrote all about conservation, and the need for treating land not as a product. And the way he wrote, he inspired John Muir, a Scottish guy, to go out to nature and write about it too. And John Muir took the president of the United States out with him,