It is hard not to think about Global disasters after you visit ancient sites such as the ones in Mexico. This is a photo that according to the Maya depicts a father carrying his dead child out of a cave. Notice that he is weeping. (Notice also that he has oriental eyes.) According to the story, a long time ago the world came to a sudden end. People fled into caves in the mountains as huge waves swept ashore. Fish and Sea Serpents rained down on the land. It became hard to breathe in the caves and all the children died before it was safe to come back out.
The Spanish Priests claimed that this monument depicted child sacrifice by parents thus justifying the ongoing campaign to slaughter the Maya. The conflict motivated me to write Second Sight and try to tell what might have been real story behind what ended our world long ago.
Three weeks ago I was standing in front of a group of students predicting that a large snow storm would hit our area in about three weeks. While many of you would laugh at 12 inches of snow being defined as a large snowstorm, for this part of Pennsylvania it certainly ranks up there. I was hoping for three feet of snow. But I’ll take a foot. That’s plenty for sledding.
In Second Sight the people of the Second Age are not so positive about snow. In fact they mourn its existence. They talk about the ice as being the reason so much is wrong with the Earth’s biosphere. This is a theme that will unfold as the story progresses. I had to put these ideas in a fictional setting because theories are very hard to postulate especially if they threaten all the dollars and prestige being harvested from established theories. Money talks. And in our culture it’s saying “Pay no attention to the possible. Only what we say is true can be.”
I was nervous about posting the 2012 piece yesterday. But I felt compelled to do so. I am impulsive and often throw caution out the side window whenever Risk has me in its sights. Wouldn’t it be something if we start getting news stories about a patch of stars being obscured by a moving dust cloud? Then the story is updated to announce the dust cloud is heading towards our solar system? That would certainly be frightening. Perhaps though if that does happen, some folks will remember to take comfort in what the ancients promised. We aren’t going to be destroyed by anything we see coming and have time to react to.