By Nellie Curtiss …
Georgia was in her element. She was listening to Greg Brown’s rendition of Blue Car in her Bluetooth Earbuds as her Irish mane waved at other travelers. She soared over the trail on her lightening scooter like a whim over a blank slate.
Her contraption carried enough juice for a ride from one end of the dessert valley to the other where grazing brontosaurs once grazed in the early formation of terra world.
Not unlike an early 20th Century earthly ride in the movie The Wild One with Marlon Brando, this cycle had no wheels and flew instead. It was manufactured on Mars and delivered via interplanetary transporter to Alamosa Cycle. The dealer had to make a few adjustments to the ride like adding a side seat, a drink and sandwich holder, and a cloaking device as anti-theft precaution.
Georgia was on a respite from her virtual numbers job. With Bella, her lab, plopped in her tag-along seat, she was ready to recharge Nellie the scooter. She named Nellie after the army jeep of the same name driven in the 1950’s serial television, the Roy Rogers Show—a Saturday morning western.
Life was way different then when cowboys and cowgirls could earn a living and save enough of their wages to eventually build their log cabins. Then the world wars and the midcentury fifties and sixties passed into the Bossy, Fussy and tyrannical years. Georgia’s ancestors could buy their family homes; but now with the centuries that passed by and income inequality growing exponentially, she barely afforded her Lightening Scooter.
To Georgia, it was like people in this time were exactly mirrored in the classic holiday film: It’s a Wonderful Life. In the film a conniving banker manipulated his wealth at the expense of hard working, caring people until the community herd showered George with money to right Mr. Potter’s stealing from the people’s bank. A music video from the same century by Pink Floyd called Welcome to the Machine seems also to show the society’s sociology.
“Whew,” she thought, “I don’t know how I could have afforded my scooter without my family.” Georgia has been working a long time with numbers and has had side jobs. Bossy era financiers began robbing from the workers long ago and now so many moral people were relegated to renting tiny box homes after working at big box stores throughout the country, not just in this other worldly dessert.
Walking with Bella on the hike near the Octopus River, Georgia strategized. One of the redeeming characteristics of her ancestors when they faced dictators was to make sure everyone voted. Some family had even worked as election judges where they verified voter faces and registrations. Others took positions with village councils. A sure way to help turn the tide against the worker was to be part of the original policymaking.
She remembered her great grandfather had been chief of seven village circles. Great Grandpa told her stories about the long nights making sure everyone had a voice and the dances that came after coming to agreements.
She and Bella were back at her Lightening Scooter and ready for the fly back home. She put her helmet on with earbuds and cranked up another version of Blue Car – this one by Jeff Bridges and The Abiders. Georgia and Bella were headed back down the mountain like the lyrics echoed.
It was a clear night sky with a bright half-moon. She stopped outside Del Norte in the dark sky to catch a glimpse of the Milky Way Galaxy.
A woman with a plan was headed back home — listening to a third version of Blue Car, this one: Julie Kathryn’s Blue Car.
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