Why was Peaceandlove acting like a tourist who’d never seen the crater before, when she had walked out of death’s front porch there, (located right next to the former Army-Navy surplus store, which had been renamed “Supplies for Guys” during the Robert Bly revival of the 2040’s)?
Because she knew this:
The Venusians were real. And they were watching.
Fortunately for her, they just liked to watch.
Marvin, on the other hand, had a problem. The forces that caused the final chain of events leading to Bozeman’s destruction (and the relocation of the main Montana State Campus to a pub outside Boise) were still out there. And they wanted one more thing.
The monkeys knew what, but they weren’t talking. One person on the Plentywood did know. They were sitting in the sustainable business class section (meaning they were each pedaling a stationary bike at their seats to power the compostable pay toilet. But it was a very comfortable bike seat)
That person was in the middle of grading the papers of her EMADFR’s (English Majors Actually Destined For Retail) written about the Great Undefined Event of 2011. She reread one junior’s take on the final moments:
The sight of snow’s absence under the heart
of a dark pine,
a constant spring that never spread
The sound of one hand resting on a shoulder,
fabric stilled by a motion made a thousand times,
this last time
The smell of soup, not finished,
the spoons laid out
like tin soldiers never called to serve
The taste of a beer so dark
it could blot out the sun
when there was still the sun
And the touch of fingers running through hair
one hand playing, one hand puzzling
and one on a dog just happy for his owner’s long, long nails
She gave it a B.
Marvin took the seat next to her just as she was about to give out her third D (That Rate My Professor crap having been eliminated during the Re-Enlightment Movement of the 2030’s).
“I see you are still trying to improve the world, Shelia.”
“I see you are in still in it, Marvin, so perhaps it is a lost cause.”
Marvin was about to reply when…
