Fal-net > Tierra Del Fuego, by Michael A. Weintraub

Tierra Del Fuego: Prose Draft

In March of 1996, as he prepared to write Tierra Del Fuego, Michael A. Weintraub started it first as a dramatic prose project. However, he only got one page into it before abandoning that idea and starting on it in screenplay form.

In the beginning, the world was a fiery place. Volcanic activity was changing the landscape and the composition of the planet. Gases swirled and settled to form an atmosphere, thin, yet tenuous enough to sustain life. Life, which emerged billions of years later, gave this planet consumers of this atmosphere. The poisonous gas, oxygen, proved deadly to the earliest forms of life but the smarter ones, the stronger ones, evolved to accept the gas and built their lives around it. Oxygen blended with hydrogen to create water, and with carbon to form breathable air. All forms of life needed oxygen, and received it in their habitats, whether it was above or below the watery depths of the raging oceans. The oceans receded and land was exposed to the air,and it was then that life, which crawled up onto the newly dried land, and branched out into nearly every single form of life.

I. Terra Firma

On New Year's Eve, Gregory Stamp stared up at the stars. He was lying on his back in his backyard, not joining in any celebrations. All around him, however, he heard the sounds of the festivities. He estimated the time was five or ten minutes before midnight; and the promise of a new year did not find its way to Gregory. It was just another year of humanity ravaging the planet without regard. Gregory tried to erase this anger from his mind as he looked up, feeling the cold, damp grass tickle his ears, and the pinpoints of the stars prick his eyes. The grass was cool, but the earth beneath it was still warm from the day's sunlight, unchecked by a thinning ozone layer. Above him, there was a certain bluish glow to the night. It was as if God originally kept the night sky the same blue as the day's, but then changed his mind. But the night canvas was not completely painted over, it still retained some of the bluishness that the black resided upon.

Gregory thought about that. It wasn't perfect, like it should have been. Nearly everything else was perfect: the slow cycle of the stars around the fixed point, a whirling dance about the north star, Polaris. He had a front row seat there, lying on his back. Imperfection clouded his mind. He sought a reason for it all, a way to justify his actions, make his endeavors worthwhile. There had to be an excuse, an ultimate goal, but he couldn't find one. So, he sought the advice of the stars to find one.

He stretched out his body, his legs relaxed and his arms outstretched, forming a T on the grass. He burrowed his head deeper in the grass and pressed his back down harder against the earth. The heat of the day had not quite left the ground, yet the chill of the night was on the grass, and again the starchy blades nestled themselves in his ears, raising his awareness, his nerves on full alert. He loved doing this, and did nearly every night he could, when the weather permitted it.

The weather, often chaotic and unpredictable, also often allowed him his evening ritual. Even on the hottest summer night, the ground was still comfortable to lie against, and the winter nights, like this one, were perfect for watching the stars.