Zach and I recently decided to meet up on Skype and at least work out a basic plot, for everyone’s sake. This hasn’t happened yet, though. I’ve been on the road for a few weeks (and will continue to be on the road for a while longer), so our communication has been limited. But on the road, I’ve been mulling over the story thus far and all the many possibilities it leaves for us at this point. I loved Zach’s description of the land, a worthy backdrop upon which to build a world. But who lives in this world? We are called to care for the earth, but one can only care about it so much (especially in narrative) without a human component. So I texted Zach one night from Shelter Harbor, FL while watching Saving Private Ryan – “I’m thinking of introducing a little girl into the story named Thany.” He gave the go-ahead, so here she is, dear readers. As Wilde put it, “She is all the heroines of the world in one.” :
“Figures,” muttered Thany to the weed beneath her Chuck Taylored toe.
She kicked the gangal scrub half-heartedly and watched it flop to and fro without deliberation. Thany could relate. She watched the weed, after all, because there was only one other thing to look at and she had looked at that plenty, she’d decided. The eleven year-old tomboy was tired of gazing out across the wide open deadlands which surrounded her.
Everyone was tired of gazing, but everyone continued gazing anyway. Thany didn’t understand it and, when she went to ask the elders why in the whirlwind-world they watched like they did, the wrinkly old men simply frowned upon her question and sent her away to continue watching. Some of the duster-moms sang songs of a rain hero coming on the wild winds, but those were songs and everyone knew that songs were just songs – nothing more, no truth, no lie, just songs to be sung by the duster-moms.