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fredag den 24. januar 2020

The Rain 3 - WfW 22/1 - 3rd part

Words for Wednesday 22 January as given by Mark:

     Deviled                    and / or           Gargled
     Interdependence                             Presence
     Watery                                            Yelling
     Figs                                                Andalusia
     Zoom                                              Snowdrifts
     Headphones                                   Exfoliate

 For this installment I used: Presence.
We are still in Two Hills.


Next day began much the same. We began to make a firehut by breaking up the ground with some of Ben's heavier, manual tools. The ground was covered in an almost glazed layer of varying depth. We broke it up on the slopes of the farthest hill, and discovered the underground to be clay, rocks and pebble.
  "It seems the Wave fluffed up most of the arable layers, glazed the subsoil layers and left the bedrock relatively untouched. This is good news indeed. I suppose the bedrock will be the limit of the Wave's devastating power only where the sole is very thin."
  Ben looked at me with a blank expression: "Say what? The which of the whats? I thought bedrock was only a ting in computer games." 
  "Sorry, I forgot. You know ... Allan is a geologist, and  ... Well, in everyday terms: The Wave fluffed up all the organic matters, the layer we normally grow plants and stuff in. Under this, there's a layer composed of stone, gravel and sand, lots of it quartzite, and coloured and permeated by minerals transported down there with the water. This layer is what we're standing on right now. The Wave was hot, it fused a thin top layer of minerals and quartz into this glasslike stuff. Luckily some of the fluff descended before it cooled off, else we would skate on a pane of glass." I smiled at the thought of all of us slipping and sliding on the vitreous slayer. "Furthest down is bedrock. Like in the computer game, only not as tough as that." 
  "And pertaining to our cooking hut this means?" Ben asked.
  "It means, we can drill, chop, somehow make holes in the hard shell, put in corner stakes and have them stand, also it won't burn."
  "But, if the earth has become lower ... I don't really know how to express this ..." Minna said. "If the fluff, was earth, topsoil, I think is the everyday word for it, and that is now washed off ... And then all the water, really ALL the water on Earth comes raining down from the skies. Will we be high enough up  here to not drown?"
  "I don't know," I answered slowly. "There are too many unknowns here. The topsoil really does not matter, it's only about one meter where it is deepest. What matters is as  you said; all the water. I imagine that some of the high grounds around here will be free of water, and become islands. But I don't know for certain. Eventually we will have to move somewhere else, I think."  
  "Maybe we should be building floating houses, raft houses, so to speak, instead of stilt houses" Ben said. 
  "Could we? And how long do we have?" Pete asked.
  "Oh, how I wish for Allan's presence." I sighed. He would know instead of all our half-baked guesswork."
to be continued

4 kommentarer:

  1. Oooh.
    I sadly fear I would be of not much help in a similar situation, those I suppose labour is always appreciated.
    This is intriguing and I fervently hope NOT prophetic.

    SvarSlet
  2. You are - like me and other of our generations - old enough to have learned to use your own barain - and we have accumulated loads of strange knowledge during our lifetime; you'd never know just what came in handy ;)
    I too sure hope this is not prophetic!

    SvarSlet
  3. And each day is a mystery. If the topsoil was all burned off, what will they grow food in? The "fluff" once it settles?

    SvarSlet
  4. Did the glazing effect caused by the heat wave cause the fluff to make people itchy?

    I hope this is not prophetic, too . . . Things seem pretty dismal for both groups. I can't wait for more!

    SvarSlet

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