Multispecies Cities by Christoph Rupprecht

Author:Christoph Rupprecht [Rupprecht, Christoph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: solarpunk, climate change, optimistic science fiction, utopia, future, renewable energies, animals in science fiction, climate fiction
Publisher: World Weaver Press
Published: 2021-04-13T06:00:00+00:00

Down the River

Eliza Victoria

The Kaliwanagan River runs through the northeast corner of the province of Salanta in Central Luzon, in the eco-city similarly named Salanta. Salanta City sits in an area once destroyed by flooding and industrial waste, but is now a protected national park. A small community lives within this protected enclave, 20,000 residents who live sustainably in their man-made environment next to the natural environment, and who ensure that the park and the river are protected from the threat of human excesses, especially with Salanta City and Kaliwanagan River attracting thousands of tourists every month.

On the night in question, two young men walk down the riverbank, the full moon reflected fully on the water. One of them considers this, considers the source of the river’s name.

Illumination.

Clarity.

***

Camila: So Paolo just called me saying he’s by the river and he did something wrong and he doesn’t know what to do next

Dominic: ???? Is he at home

I TOLD you something’s up with him

I’m putting on my shoes

Camila: I don’t get it

Now he’s saying Ryan is there with him

Dominic: ?????????

Ryan the boss’s son Ryan?

Camila: I’ll try and call him back this makes no sense

***

Kaliwanagan River is sacred. Historical records mention pigs and cows being slain and placed on boats as a sacrifice to the river. The townsfolk no longer do this, but people here know that they must show respect to Kaliwanagan. No angry words while you travel across the river. No hatred. No cruelty. And of course, no littering.

“I tell my children, imagine the river is a person,” Aster Magat tells me. “Would you throw garbage at a person just because you’re too lazy to find a bin?”

Aster was the immediate past Director of the Salanta City Park Authority, a position she had held for six years, having been appointed twice in a row by the city mayor. “Of course, one hopes you can teach respect without making these comparisons,” she continues. “It’s a river, it’s the source of our water, living things thrive in it; I don’t need to bend over backwards and tell you it’s a person just so you don’t throw your soda cans over the side of the boat. It’s like with crime, isn’t it? You need to tell some people, what if the person who was shot to death was your brother? Or your mother? You need to make this personal connection just to wake them up. It’s not enough that we’re talking about a fellow human being here. But anyway, I’ve gone off on a tangent.”

Aster loves going off on tangents, but I don’t mind; she tells the best stories.

The story I came here to listen to is how the river once punished a man who didn’t show it respect.

She tells me that a small subset of the population—“Not everyone, okay, just a small subset”—believes that the river can lash back, and that it did so in the case of Bernardo Galaran, the multi-millionaire hotel scion who runs one of the restaurants in the park.

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