evolution and devolution

written 20240515, last updated 20240824.

“write about evolution and devolution. how do we unravel and re-ravel? think about what histories our bodies and communities and species and worlds are made of.”

fragment one. the network was up only intermittently at this point. when it was, and all the streetlights were working, the ones that still had bulbs, at least, i’d go for a walk down the long arterial westward drive, passing through and between the discs of light. it felt safer this way, even if the roads were empty at night now, and even if light or no light, it would make no difference if someone tried me.

a few kilometres from the apartment, just before the road crossed the lake, was a pile of abandoned roadworks. the lanes each way narrowed down between reflective bollards, passing by an unfinished extension. they had never got to the point of sealing it, and over winter the flat stretch of gravel road had got churned up, become a permanently muddy quagmire. the traffic cones and a slow down sign were half submerged in it.

bordering the road on the eastern side, and extending well beyond the point it gave out, was the outer fenceline of the exclusion zone. the paddocks between it and the inner fence were black. tonight, with the network up, i could just see the lights on in the building that sat deep inside, trying to be inconspicuous amongst a grove of eucalypts.

on the western side were more earthworks, also fenced off. this had been a greenfield, then it was marked for the new development, then it was abandoned. the extension would have serviced all the traffic headed out of it in the morning for the city, then back in the evenings to the townhouses and apartments. the hoardings were still up, but thoroughly covered in graffiti.

we knew by now the course of things would not be resuming. the power was becoming more inconsistent. no one was wasting fuel just to drive around. no one would build new suburbs and no one would live in those imaginary homes. at this point i may have been the only person still around who remembered it had even been planned for, who remembered this abandoned mire still existed. certainly i was the only person spending this warm, early summer evening out this way rather than in the city.

there was not much i would miss about this city or the time i had lived here. some amphibian part of me was almost pleased to see things becoming wet and marshy, to see their glossy vehicles becoming bogged, streaked inside and out with mud, stains appearing on the sheer-sleek concrete facades of their offices and apartments.

weirdly, i’d miss places like this, which were always the first sign of their arrival, the first sally in terraforming the grasslands and wetlands to their purposes. i liked their labyrinthine nature, the jumble of signs and barriers, and the way they emptied out after dark, as though each night they were open for other creatures to occupy, even take all the half-dug earth and equipment and shape it into something wholly different, for things wholly different.

the streetlights began to flicker and dim, a brownout. i was leaning up against the fence on the side of the exclusion zone. to get back onto the footpath i’d have to navigate the maze of construction works, and there was no way i’d manage that if the lights went out totally. and i hadn’t brought a flashlight. idiot. but the power held out in that dimmed and flickering phase long enough for me to get back to the road and turn towards home, then at once with an audible grunt they shut off, and it was me and the moonless evening, and a slow, careful walk back to the apartment.

return to muse ariadne