Beaver State (fiction)

As a city engineer I spent the day supervising the dykes and levies that kept the river out of the city. The rain continued to pour, the snow pack continued to melt. Foot by foot the water rose, the smaller creeks and rivers began to flood.

From my office window I could see a beaver working on his doomed dam. The foolish creature could not see the larger picture. Though he was felling trees feverishly he would soon fail. He could abandon his home, swim up the creek to safety, but he worked until his dam, his lodge, all he had went spinning away in dark water. Still he continued to fell the trees until he was crushed and his limp form was swept away in the debris and muddy water.

That night I studied plans, and maps, and elevations of our city, designing ways to save homes and businesses. I could sacrifice Water Front Park and place concrete barriers along the avenue. The docks would be gone, but the courthouse would be safe. As I worked the ghost of the beaver swam through the walls and stood before me, dripping and laughing.

“What do you find so amusing?”

“You.”

“Go away, I have work to do. I have plans to make, crews to direct, a city to save.”

“You thought I was silly, working on my home during the flood.

“You are silly,” I replied. “It was hopeless. And pointless. It was only a lodge. I am working to save a city. Museums and zoo, parks and university, I work to preserve art and industry. This is my legacy, my contribution to the building of a civilization.”

“You think your city grand, your civilization supreme. But it is no more than a lodge of sticks in a muddy creek.

“You create your own disasters. I don't know what will sweep you away, disease, overpopulation, your violent nature, your abuse of what is, but you are doomed.

“My struggle was one nature gave me, a natural wrestling match. You are battling the changes you made to the river, the loss of the forest, the caustic air over your streets, the pavement that throws the water back at you. In a few centuries your kind will be washed away by the flood of your own foolishness. Today you laughed at me while you are working on your own doomed dam. You cannot see the larger picture.”

The beaver continued to chuckle as he swam through the wall into the falling rain.