Letters from the future
A powerful series of original fiction published by Sustainable Wales from leading authors, poets and thinkers.
by Zoë Brigley
Do you remember those afternoons in summer? The high and tight sound: that ratta-tatta-tatta of the sprinklers making arcs over the grass? You joked that our lawn was the worst in the neighbourhood. Before long, the home owner’s association did send a letter out, said we had X amount of days to turn our green patch into monoturf: a luminous, plastic carpet.
Read Moreby Lucy Bourke
That day I remember a pair of hummingbirds whirring and bobbing through the passionflowers. I watched them closely and felt hypnotised by their shimmering darting movements, by their blue and their green. They took me away from the chaos, if only for a moment.
Read Moreby Sampurna Chattarji
Don’t ask me who I am. Don’t ask me what date it is. Lost all that aeons ago. Time! I was a slave to time once. I followed the clock. I caught the train, the 7.10 fast local. Every morning I shaved off the evidence of another day’s passage through my skin and faced the world like a newborn thing.
Read Moreby Harry Laing
So you’re coming out here again. That’s great news and about time. I can at least promise you some dry ground. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be rained on and flooded out the entire time. I’m not surprised so many folk never come out of their helmets or whatever the new smart-head-things are called.
Read Moreby Mike Jenkins
We are the flood-refugees, the new nomads; except, it is not by any choice of ours.
We are all inhabitants of Cantre’r Gwaelod now, lost cities under the sea. All citizens of Capel Celyn, though it wasn’t just a callous government in London which caused this demise, but all powers everywhere who ignored years of warnings.
Read Moreby John Barnie
Initially I was reluctant to enter solar system S-23-44. Long-range scans indicated gas giants and rocky planets with either no atmosphere or a poisonous one. There was one exception, however, S-23-44-3, which our bio-scientists thought worth investigation.
Read Moreby Stephen Robert Harris
Well love, here I am on top of Mynydd Bwllfa in the pouring rain, hot and sweaty as usual, taking down yet another bloody wind turbine. We’ve been up here for months now and still there’s dozens of the buggers left to go – still the scrap’s worth a fortune and the pay’s good, so I guess I shouldn’t moan. On a bad day (like today) it all seems a bit pointless – I mean they knew they’d never produce enough power to make a difference but they built them anyway, a bit like digging a hole just so you can fill it in later, but a lot (a lot!) more pricey – but as I say, the pay’s good and God knows I need the work, what with you away in Uni and your Mam’s regen treatment to pay for.
Read Moreby Robert Minhinnick
You said I was mad but I wanted to show you. So I collected rainwater, then found an oak tree. Not long ago I couldn’t have told you one thing about an oak. But around here oaks used to cover everything. That’s why you see the word deri so often. See, I’m learning from the landscape. And from you.
Read MoreOur mission is to seek solutions for the unsustainable way we live. This involves cultural change and has implications for future generations.
Sustainable Wales’s aim is to help revitalise the local economy. We promote social and environmental progress and are enterprising, creative and internationally aware.
We are committed to society, artistic creativity and the natural world. We work with communities, voluntary groups and government.
We believe in this way we can foster an exciting future that doesn’t cost us the earth.
Sustainable Wales | 5 James Street, Porthcawl, CF36 3BG, UK