You know how sometimes you stand on a beach and just stare
out at the water, allowing your thoughts to emerge freely in no particular
order? Some of The Old Man and the
Wasteland is like that. It's part Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, part Daniel DeFoe's Robinson Crusoe, and part Richard Matheson's The Omega Man.
Forty years ago, the bombs from the Middle East fell on
Yuma, Arizona. He used to have a name, but now he's known only as "The Old
Man." And today, he started a walk-about into the wasteland – what used to
be called the Sonoran Desert.
It's a good time to reflect about the past (and time was one
thing they had plenty of these days) – how everything deteriorated, how they
got to where they're at. Scavenging and salvaging. That's what this is all
about, these days. An abandoned refrigerator good for ice-making, a rusty
contemplation-worthy sedan, a dead bee that hopefully can lead him to water, an
old motel that survived on solar power all these years.
What adventure THAT was, the old motel, run by another old,
albeit blind guy he dubs Mirrored Sunglasses, who tends an dried-out swimming
pool devoid of anything but snakes – lots of hissing, deadly rattlers. It all
goes to show you gotta heed the warning over the dusty bed. The one created out
of phosphorescent moons and stars.
The walk goes on, thoughts so inconsequential crowding his
mind, continuing even as he encounters a famished wolf pack and its powerful
alpha leader, who himself is fighting back the advances of two youthful challengers.
and then, treasure in a sewer – a cache, a life-saving cache, compliments of
the U.S. Army.
The Old Man survives a flash flood and an extended encounter
with Himbradda, he of the withered arm, leader of The People. Good. Because
survival allowed The Old Man to reach Tucson, where he found some answers.
The Old Man and the Wasteland
(2011)
Nick Cole
Nick Cole Kindle Edition ($0.99)
ASN: B004BGW6VA
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