Dead Ohio
A Short Story  We watch in satisfaction as the last known Hummer H2 in Pittsburgh shatters into fragments, the once hulking beast now a pile of useless shavings, its destructive power at an end. We crouch in witness, Harvey, Sam and I, behind some scrubby bushes, the only vegetation left in the urban zone thanks to forty years of empty United States “energy plans.” Harvey, Dead Ohio’s expert climatologist, puts his hand on Sam’s shoulder, whose punk genius built the harmonic bomb while in high school physics two years ago. For environmentalist-vigilantes such as ourselves, the traditional bomb had proven to be too much of a risk to local ecosystems. In fact, until Sam’s prodigious contribution, Harvey had condemned Dead Ohio’s violent tactics, insisting we win over ignorant, earth-killing fools with the power of argument. It took me quite some time, and many hilarious psychological experiments involving typically insecure men, before I convinced him that argument against our enemy is as fruitful as giving a blind man the finger. It was right around the time Harvey was accepting sense that Sam actually sought us out and offered us his labors, along with certain new technologies. His real name is something like Jeremy, but he insists we call him Samuel Adams. He’s tall and skinny, with cute pink cheeks he tries to conceal with his spiky black hair. “Tabea,” says Sam, startling me out of my reverie. He flashes his perfectly orthodontized teeth. (Well, he was raised in Sewickley.) “How do you feel?” I smile back. “Pretty damned fantastic. “Harvey?” “Striking a blow against selfish, destructive assholes? Priceless.” Harvey’s green eyes crinkle at the edges as he grins triumphantly. He looks exactly like you’d think an ecologist would - solidly built with tan skin on the edge of leathery. His model was the one to predict that the Ohio River would become hostile to native organisms and evaporate. Sure enough, the organisms are long gone and the water level has subsided at very near the rate he predicted. We revel a bit longer before returning to headquarters. We park our bicycles outside the storefront we rent downtown. We keep it on the down-low, obviously. No signage or any other identification that would make it stand apart from the hundred other display windows long-since boarded up. (Parking prices, you know.) In fact, the only front in use in the entire city is one of those Edgar Snyder satellites which, of course, every town has. We once tried to talk Ed Junior into some pro-bono, but he wasn’t having any of it. As we walk into the building, The Writers turn to look at us in anticipation. “Without a hitch,” Sam says, his fist thrust into the air. “Onward to phase two!” Everyone cheers as Sam dances a jig. Harvey tries to join in, but his Born sandals get caught up in the ancient carpeting and he hits the wall, knocking down our oak-framed Manifesto. He blushes slightly, picking himself and the document up off the floor. He looks fondly upon it and begins to read aloud. Everyone listens with reverence. We, the members of the Dead Ohio organization, in response to the United States Government’s abhorrent decision to give greed priority rather than taking measures necessary to slow our country’s disproportionate contribution to earth’s anthropogenic climate change, hereby vow to take any action necessary, whether peaceful or violent, legal or illegal, to reclaim the planet for those wise enough to conserve what natural resources remain. We shall move without apprehension to destroy material commodities which threaten the environment, while taking any precautions necessary to protect living creatures from our purges. We have taken the responsibility upon ourselves that our elected officials have shirked; We shall avenge our beloved land. Harvey sighs and nods once, rededicating himself. We spend a moment of silence before moving on