By Matthew Azuley
Dedicated to David & Sue & all the present & past staff of Two Whales Coffee Shop
1. Ghosts
The riddle of our living is the genius beneath the suffering. I uncovered this in Newfoundland. I was told a colonial story of which I am the extension.
A fishing vessel was wrecked but for one survivor, brought back to Petty Harbour. Distressed, boatless, for days he paced the coast with a telescope, hoping to spy his shipmates. In the Newfoundland fog I was mistaken for his ghost. I was looking for whales.
I yearned to witness them from craggy cliffs, from where wind-stunted conifers pour lichen over blueberry carpets; nature’s sensuousness expunged old wraith-like memories. A whale-watching ride crafted into a slick but gutsy production in an other-worldly light, gave me finally, an encounter.
Yael, my wife, tortured healer and spy for the unnameable, had flown us to meet these beasts. Yael and I had met at far-flung extremities of ecology, relationship and self.
2. The girls
Among these wilds, in meditation I was drowned. At times a new self surfaced, not owned; a brilliant awareness. It saw entangled bundles of threads I had taken to be me. Futures flashed in prophecy. Yael was calmly cognisant.
Day-to-day perception re-oriented to metaphor. A local woman by her stoop would rather count dead crows than go to the capital. A young boy by his wary glint was planning a life on Mars.
‘There’ll be ways to get there, we don’t know yet’ he proclaimed one day, in passing. Not likely after the mess Musk made.
***
Now it is afterwards. I volunteer in the veg patch of Two Whales Coffee Shop at Port Rexton. It sprung up three decades back after the cod dried up. The grounded faith the owners instil in the teenage girls they employ, will one day save this province. Selfless courage will invigorate a latent networked creativity…will birth heroic genius — recognisable by the drowned. The old C02-farting patriarchy will be defeated by these girls and their loyal partners.
One of Two Whales’ founders is David, also the voluntary ex-chief of the local fire service. Often uncannily in the right place at the right time: perhaps an extension of his tai chi. Catastrophes are common now. He says ‘nothing is black and white’ so some of the locals call him ‘Tai Chi Panda’.
The other of Two Whales’ founders, Sue, works for Decentralised AI (DAI) and bakes excellent cakes, although she’s not sweet-toothed. Her lemon drizzle is a killer. When she married David, she didn’t tell him about her work in bringing down the global capitalist patriarchy and weakening the CIA’s Centralised AI. Before he knew the truth, he thought she spent hours playing patience on the computer. Metaphorically, it was true. Sue had directed Yael to Newfoundland for discussion and operations, of which I am only beginning to learn; us men blindly follow their script.
3. Little starfish, 2029
More climate tipping points were reached this autumn, including the first ice-free summer Arctic. Bewilderedness escalates.
Breaks from former selves are quickened by ecological trauma. An original Beothuk lineage — self-revealed survivors of European genocide — is returning to the islands. Communities are slowly fracturing into those who have guns and those who don’t, with Indigenous folk on both sides. For now, the combined ingenuity of the unarmed prevails, with DAI on their side. I am sure that all will eventually rally round to fight the greater enemy. Weapons may be needed.
Two Whales is now the first Good War Room on Newfoundland. More are emerging. The beauty of bleak boarded-up properties is giving way to practical use. Sunsets burn more bloody than ever and the bears and lynxes become more bold.
On Newfoundland beaches, amidst global ecological and economic collapse, as superpowers battle with each other and try to retain control over decentralised communities like ours, little pink starfish are washing up in numbers. I know that in some species, new starfish can grow from portions of their severed limbs.
It is not just starfish that can regrow from small parts of themselves; from a few thoughts connected across a few individuals, a whole new universe can grow.
Centre of the Web 