THAT DAY

My housemate's furious and hurt. The board of the nonprofit he works for as treasurer and accountant just censured him! He's been nearly volunteering; they pay just $10,000 a year. To replace him, they'd have to triple that. I urge him "Quit! Why endure both stress and low pay? Even a half-time job at the local minimum wage would pay better--with fewer insults." But he clings to the familiar, no matter how poisonous the atmosphere gets.

Then my sister Miriel calls from Santa Cruz. Her NVC [Non-Violent Communication] group begged her to return. She did, and they promptly ganged up on her again, blamed her for all the group's problems. She's endured escalating bullshit for months now. But today, she walked out for good! High time, too.

I just wish the other lobster in the pot would admit they're slow-cooking him, and crawl out of gossip stew.

THAT NIGHT

At last the timepod glides to a halt. All out: Precambrian Station. Stark rubble out sealed ports, lunar gray--land and air unborn. Earth's predawn. Anoxic algae age! I've come for the investigation Of a fatal accident--if chance it was. The staff's been here so long They take for granted their bizarre eon--testify for hours before Anyone mentions the air's deadly! Stifling I knew: planktonic seas Still wick up free oxygen, then sweep it under the rugg'd abyss As rustbeds (to later miners, 'twill seam ironic). But Precambrian air Isn't just dead--deadly! For these early stromes dabble in photosyntheses! Chlorophyll has rivals. Oh, it'll outlast gold, red or blue, for green's Rivals fart suicide and just plateau; while ox feeds beasties who exhale to refeed chlorophyll--a loop that fuels the future. But we're long before Chlorophyll's big Dar win; this year's champs spew sulfides, cyanides, more. Yet only the 14th witness thinks to warn "You seem unaware our local air Isn't just anoxic but searing, toxic. Dome blowout? A mere pinhole here Can kill." Only now, initiate, dare I wonder: murder by atmosphere?

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• "Stark rubble...lunar gray...anoxic age:" we're so deep in the past, rocks lack the rusty tones common on modern Earth (and Mars) from oxidation.
• Ancient rivals to chlorophyll: why not? Later, when animals went multicellular, we saw an explosion of wild designs. Why not earlier with photosynthesis, too? Maybe rival processes contended before we stumbled on a clear winner: a symbiotic system with zero waste! But of course the image also warns of slightly more recent crises:
• The atmosphere isn't just unsupportive, it's poison!
  1. The atmosphere in my sister's Santa Cruz circle isn't just mean. It's deadly. But the pressure built so slow she took abuse for granted. Till now!
  2. My housemate's nonprofit? Same exact thing. Except he fears to jump from pan to fire.
  And I've done it too. Haven't you? Gotten so used to slow abuse that you cling to a nest of barb wire?

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