The Things You Will See

Scott Drew

 

Six stories of steel and concrete, slathered with lead paint, dripping PCBs. An acre of storage packed with asbestos: a giant snow globe not to be shaken. An open pit filled with old tires and murky water. Crushed ore, spent but still fibrous, piled high at the river’s edge. The things I have seen, Daughter. The things I’ve seen.

But Dad, the flies you taught me to tie? The spoons and spinners we cast? The trout I landed?

A contaminant plume beneath Main Street, front yards, and cornfields: the aquifer infected with TCE, PCE and the rest of the alphabet soup. Water wells pumped; faucets ran; farms irrigated, and the factory’s underground tanks oozed and leaked. Yes, Daughter, the things I‘ve seen.

But Dad, I ran through sprinklers. We washed and bathed. I drank the water.

From the tanker run aground: it flows into the ocean, slick on the surface, tar on the seafloor. A pipeline breach: it sprays on prickly pear and wild oak, on turkey vultures and jackrabbits, on the horned frog and desert tortoise. A train derailment: it seeps through pastures, around hooves, and up to my feet. The things I see, Daughter. The things I see.

But Father, the truck you drive and the furnace heat? The company you keep?

Rising seas, mosquito bites, wildfires and hurricanes, empty reservoirs and dirty bombs. Dear Daughter, the things you will see. The things you’ll see.

Oh, please, Father. Just stop. I have a smartphone and a high fence, a driverless car and drones overhead. Don’t worry. My gate is closed, and so is yours.

 

Scott Drew is a graduate of Bowdoin College and Ohio State University and works as an environmental consultant in New Hampshire. Scott’s fiction has appeared in Flyway: Journal of Writing and Environment.