• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1819 0

back little bits of this great country of ours. Mostly the cheap ones, the parts too ruined for any commercial use. If you leave them alone long enough, seven generations, sometimes they come back a little. But they’ll never come back the same way. Extinction is permanent. A futuristic swamp full of homemade monsters really isn’t the same as a native wetlands. We really did kill the buffalo, and the native flowers, and the native grasses, and the primeval forests, and we did it for a cheap buck, and it’s gone forever. And that’s bad. It’s very bad. It’s worse than we can ever repay. It’s like a hideous war crime. It haunts America like genocide haunts Germany, like slavery haunts the South. We turned our brother creatures into toys. And the Dutch are right about that. All the people whose homes are drowning are dead right, morally right, ethically right, physically right. Yes, we Americans spewed more greenhouse gas than anyone else in the world. We are the single biggest problem. So yes, I intend to implement some Dutch policies in this country. Not every last one of them, the ones that I think make most sense. And that change would never, ever happen by them conquering us. It could only happen by us conquering them.”

“Then you are a Dutch agent.”

“Oscar, we own them. They surrendered. We’re a large and slowly drowning country that defeated a small and quickly drowning country. That’s reality, it’s the world, it’s what we live in.”

“Mr. President, I agree with you. I’m glad that I know the truth now. It’s a shattering truth that just destroyed every ambition I have ever had, but I’m glad that I know the truth. It’s the highest value I have, as the person that I am, and I won’t surrender it. I don’t want your job.”

“Well, you’ll never work in this town again, son. I’ll have to fix it that way.”

“I know that, Mr. President. Thank you for your courtesy.”

The Mississippi River had cut New Orleans in half, but if anything, the flooding had added to the city’s raffish charm. The spectral isolation of the French Quarter was only intensified by its becoming an island; there was an almost Venetian quality to it, intensified by the gondolas.

The official parades down Canal Street were well policed, but it was very loud on Bourbon Street, where spontaneous crowds accreted, with no raison d’etre other than entertaining one another.

Greta stepped away from the green and peeling window shutters. “It’s so good to be here,” she said.

Oscar enjoyed the Mardi Gras crowds. He felt at ease as the only sober being in a huge, jostling mess of flat-footed drunks. Among them, but never quite of them. It was the story of his life. “You know, I could have gotten us onto one of those parade floats. Throwing out beads and bangles and free software. That looked like fun.”

“Noblesse oblige,” she murmured.

“It’s a local krewe thing. Very old, very New Orleans. The local debs booked up all their dance cards in the 1850s, but they tell me that cadging a float ride is doable. If you know who to know.”

“Maybe next year,” she told him. A subtle rap came at the door’s mahogany paneling. Hotel staffers in white jackets and boutonnieres arrived with a rattling sandalwood pushcart. Oysters, shrimp, iced champagne. Greta left for the bedroom to change for dinner. The locals silently busied themselves at the linen table, lighting the candelabrum, opening the bottle, brimming the glasses. Oscar patiently escorted them back to the hall. Then he clicked off the light.

Greta returned and examined the candelabrum. She was dressed in deep brown antebellum lace and a feathered vizard. The mask really worked for him. He loved the mask. Even in the thickest sprawl of Mardi Gras she would be a striking creature.

“Chocolate truffles?” she said eagerly.

“I didn’t forget. Later.” Oscar lifted his champagne flute, admired the golden bubbles, set it back down.

“You still don’t drink, do you?”

“You go ahead. I’ll just admire it. With half an eye.”

“I’ll just have a sip,” she said, licking her long upper lip below the feathered edge of the mask. “I have this