The gray sky behind his broad shoulders with the whoosh, whoosh,
are the earliest memories, I have of my father.
I was born high atop a Siemens wind turbine on what used to be my Great Grandfathers
farm. I was given tasks at a young age, but was never allowed below the 30 meter deck.
It was said that the rats below that would carry you into the bottoms and devour you.
I grew to know that the stores below were grains and other sustenance for us but the other
dangers where not for little girls.
Father busied himself daily with "things", dealing with others, and the threat of the nomads.
He was a wide eyed, bearded man with blue eyes and thick eyebrows. He was not tall,
but broad at the shoulder, and forearms as round as a piece of fire wood. It was told he once
picked up a heavy piece of iron off his father, that fell on him during the Hordes of China.
I gave myself to the winds of the aviary at the top of the 88 meter tower. My father had
constructed a wire bird trap at the top baited with grain and mice in order to trap birds.
I loved the peaceful feel of the 'top' as Dad put it. I could sit forever waiting for a turtle dove,
or pigeon to come take bait, and become a temporary pet until eaten.
My father had a few raptors red hawks, bald eagles, and once a golden eagle.
He told me that raptors were the only birds worth saving as the had lived through the
End of Times War between all nations. Although I knew the other birds that we ate were
survivors too, He favored the big raptors as supreme.
The End of Times War occurred when the worlds finances had run it's course, kind of like
when someone wins all the hotels at Monopoly, It's great until the other countries without food
or a source of means, encouraged the war.
It had come to a boiling when China in 2025 had become a superpower and called it's
loan on the US. The US bristled and began a war on another blank check.
It would consume both countries to the brink of starvation, along with the allies that sided with
both.
In a last defiant effort the US was about to launch a nuclear bomb, when the Pacific rim
near China erupted in the most spectacular earthquake ever recorded. A Tsunami went so
far up the Yellow river that the Himalayas were waterfront property. 3 million were killed
the first day, tens of thousands followed after from aftershocks, and disease.
Perhaps Divine intervention, maybe dumb luck, it was the saving the earth needed even though it
plummeted the earth into an ice age that would last a century and take 80% of the population.
The Hordes of China continued for another 25 years, Two generations of revenge and pillage
of the North Americas. More a rebellion, than a war. but never ending.
The stories of Great grandfather fighting that war are an echo of my childhood.
I can hardly remember my grandfather, the man who would recite the tales, over and over.
Even in his final days he was heard to say " Chinese, Slant eyed bastards."
I only remember father saying how we must somehow put this back together again.
"What, can we do", I would ask. " How can we make sense of a broken world", Her soft voice
said.
"Lily, I want to make a radio station, and sell our electricity.", daddy said.
" I want people to be happy and love again", " and tomorrow is the day...."
Lily, looked up at him, "A radio station, what's that"?
"It's something that people will listen to like they used to", He said
Off her father went down into the bottoms to find something, something that would change
the world.
Lily looked at her cloth doll and said;" A radio station, he's really lost it now!"
" Last time it was a hawk trap, what next Betty Ruth?"
The doll offered it's same mute response.
" Well it's bed time anyhow."..
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