Near + Far by Cat Rambo

Author:Cat Rambo [Rambo, Cat]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, Short Stories (Single Author)
ISBN: 9780984830145
Google: G9SMMAEACAAJ
Amazon: 0984830146
Publisher: Hydra House
Published: 2012-07-15T07:00:00+00:00

Back home, I sit out by the lake. Water lilies cover most of the surface; people used to cut them back, but fewer people have gasoline for their boats, nowadays. You can't just go along through a neighborhood, siphoning cans, the way you used to be able to. The eagles swooped out over the lake and the frogs sang. We're lucky here—most pollution was reversible, given time, and it's been twenty years.

Something splashes far out in the dark water, a fish, most probably. A long time ago, this lake housed perch and bass as well, but now we only have the fish pens and our mutant, ghostly salmon, which drift ashore to be eaten by Joe's robot cats.

In fifty or sixty years' time, only the last of us will be surviving, the ones that were children in 2017. They will be living entirely off the earth by then. One by one, the last will die, alone perhaps, or in small groups, as we are now. Some people will strive to leave a message behind, in case someone comes after them, like Celeste's paintings, but most will be content to slip into obscurity.

I see the reeds rustling near the fish pens, and investigation discloses Pierre and Heracles, working their way close. I shoo them off. Leaning over to stare into the fish pen, I see a light deep in the water.

It is elusive, escapes the long handled net I try to catch it with again and again, but I am experienced at this from years of fish breeding. Finally I net it, bring it up to look closer.

Coiling and writhing in the net is a tiny fish, phosphorescent green from head to tail. I know what this is. We've heard news of infestations in other waters.

They were originally ornamental. Bred for decoration. Rendered sterile with radiation before being sold to the public. But life is stubborn, and it will come out, somehow. They became so popular it was inevitable one or two, or ten or fifteen, would slip by. Some were released in lakes.

It's not as bad as the snakehead along the East Coast. Those things invade gardens and fields and eat them bare. But these little glowing fish will eventually fill the lake, eating what our fish live on, the plants and the insects. It will take a while. Years. Decades. Perhaps none of us will live to see the lake's death.

I stare out into the darkness. Should I go with Celeste? What holds me here? I spend my days caring for the others at Villa Marina, bringing in fish, tending the garden, trading at the market for the things we need to stay alive. I had been the director, the one coordinating what we did where and when. I planned the fish pens, and the windmill turbine, after spending days at the library and then Home Depot. It was tiring. Was there a point to it?

The clack of Pierre's steel claws floats from the parking lot, and then there is a screech as he jumps atop a rusting car.

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