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You may not copy, steal, fold, spindle, or mutilate it without my prior written permission.
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Glass Houses After Peak Oil-
Saul Greenman sighed.
That was it.
The last whole pane of glass was broken into too many pieces
to patch and remain clear enough for what little was left of the greenhouse.
The greenhouse passed
down for more generations than he could think of offhand, and the namesake of
his family, was now ruined beyond further practical use. He remember when his grandfather talked about
how his great-great to the tenth grandfather had gone out to the abandoned
homes and ancient vehicles of all the nearby towns and scavenged as much whole and large pieces
of glass as possible. He remembered how
they had been carefully saved for the past generations.
Hoarded and buried for when the “Deptys” came round looking
for valuables to tax or just seize.
Every pane patched and covered every way possible. But
weather and accident over the many many generations had taken their toll.
Saul still had the remains of many of the panes. But it
would not be enough clear translucencies to provide year round food as it had
in the past. Maybe he could still use the greenhouses warmth to start
seedlings, but the harsh winters would be less pleasant without the greens he
could once sell to the few who stayed on for the northern prairie’s winters.
The Cowboys and Deptys would be back next spring expecting
Saul to sell them the fruits of his labors.
Saul dismally used the clay mix to patch the glass as
carefully as he could to prevent the heat loss that was already causing the
even the hearty winter greenhouse crops to wilt. Only the sun, compost, and
ancient buried insulation heated the greenhouse. The northern prairies, even with the
foresight of the Greenman forefathers, was too fuel scarce for Saul to heat
with fire for more than a winter or two. Always the sun through glass in the
day and careful insulation at night had been enough.
Saul wasn’t going to starve. Not this year or next for
certain. The Sherf might even hire him
as a scribe as Saul was well lettered and highly numerate knowing more of the
oil age knowing than most. But working
for the Sherf would mean an end to his courtship of the Sweetwells eldest
girl. They didn’t care much for the
Sherf or Cowboys nomadic ways. And to
work for the Sherf you had to travel with his squad.
“Mama?” Saul called out as he entered the family home. Earth
sheltered and as insulated as the greenhouse, it seemed warm but dim to Saul.
“What’s wrong ‘hun?” the tired voice of the young man’s remaining
aging parent.
“The last good pane broke” his voice caught “pretty bad too.”
His mother’s sigh echoed his own.
“How’s the light levels?”
“Dim, probably too dim to produce as much as even last year.”
The last year had been another bad one with more clouds and less precipitation
than most winters.
The hard-worn woman looked even older than her four decades
as her head bowed under the weight of the news.
“Do you think the early spring traders might have some glass
to sell this year?” Saul inquired with a forlorn optimism even as his mother
shook her head.
“I’ve asked every year for the past six. That was it. That
was the last pane anyone had from the oil ages.”
“But the books said that glass came before oil- why isn’t anyone
making it?”
“I don’t know son, I just don’t know.”
“The Cowboys say the Fed army makes powder for their
cannons, surely someone can make some glass?”
“I don’t know son” her
voice was tired and sad.
The next few weeks passed with Saul fighting his frustration
and despair, and as Saul struggled with his emotions the greenhouse plants
struggled with insufficient sun.
Saul dreamt one night about struggling harder and harder to
push the sun into his family greenhouse and how as his hands burned the patched
glass turned to water sprinkled his plants into lush green growth.
As Saul awoke his mind mulled over the dream, something was
bothering him about it.
Some sort of fact that he knew from his schooling. His family had always been careful to have
few children, and to amass as many books of every sort as possible, and to
school their children at home with those same books. His hands cramped in
memory of copying a dozen whole books on to the pressed linen as his last
schooling task.
“Mama I need to look at the library.”
“Go ahead son, but be careful when you are reading it to
take care with those older books. Now that the glass is gone, only those and
the old seed varieties can be given as your inheritance.”
Over the days to come the encyclopedias and science books
were devoured by Sauls inquisitive mind.
The fact that most were poorly written copies of older works
that were falling to pieces deep in the hidden library of the Greenman family didn’t
matter to Saul. He found enough clues. Making glass took fire. A HOT fire, pure
sand OR crushed older glass, a ‘blowing’ pipe of some sort, and additives such
as zinc, lead, or copper. Although his
fuel was limited he knew how to make charcoal for a hot fire, and had what he
thought was enough of the old glass to try experiment on. He couldn’t make the
oil age large smooth and even sheets but perhaps, with trial he could make
something usable.
Soon the dimmest corner of the ancient greenhouse played
host to his ‘stove’ as he called it and he experimented. He got burned a lot,
and was called a fool and the butt of many jokes when he went to town on his
few errands there.
But when he paid the Sherf’s tax with a glass goblet he blew
himself, and presented to Clara Sweetwell a mostly matched set of glass
drinking mugs the humor dried up.
Three years later Saul and his wife Clara and their newborn
babe loaded up the last of the parcels into the wagon, they were setting forth
toward the city on the banks of the Misippy that was the seat of the Fed army,
where Saul hoped to usher in an era of profitable glassmaking.
Sauls mother and two brothers-in-law were putting into place
the last pane of lattice window that the greenhouse needed to be restored to
its former glory, and they paused their labors to wave farewell to the
departing family.
