The Copper Seller

Isle Royale

2072 AD

Mira rises to a rust-colored dawn. The blood-red sun is low on the horizon, flooding the earth with its sanguine light. Lake Superior, inky black and oily, diffuses the harsh morning on languid waves.

She takes a tentative breath from the open door. The wind from the Lake, carrying a whiff of algae bloom and decay, takes the edge off of the punishing temperature. She uses an ancient solar-powered calculator and a psychrometer to record the day’s humidity and weather conditions. It’s shaping up to be a mild December.

Emerging fully into the open air, Mira takes careful steps off of her porch. She lets Tate sleep in longer, nestling herself on the hillside between two gnarled trees, spending an extra hour watching the washed-out world around her, a world exposed on expired film, making note of its small, trembling movements. 

When her grandson wakes, they enjoy the small luxury of breakfasting outside. She takes down three dried fish from the pantry and they eat it with some pickled walnuts and dandelion root infused water. Tate’s eyes look gray in the filtered natural light, two bright, colorless nebulae under a platinum fringe.

There’s a sense of promise in the day, and with a small frisson Mira plucks one of the dried apples hanging in a net in their kitchen. Tate shouts excitedly, and her heart leaps.

By the time they have packed their things and wrapped their faces tightly, the sun is a dark boil in a tangerine haze, Lake Superior a gun-metal gray sheet. Billowing heavenward after the mass extinctions, clouds of methane form a thick padding in the atmosphere. They strangle the sunlight, letting only the angry low-wavelength photons penetrate its layers. The surface below, the only world Tate has ever known, is permanently limited to a palette of burnt tones: sepia, ochre, crimson. 

They pick their way down the coast, keeping a safe distance from the toxic waters. Accustomed to the stench, their feet crunch on pebbles and dodge lines of beached seaweed. The last time they made their way to the far side of the Island, they had found a small vein of copper wedged between boulders, and Tate, with youthful optimism, opined that more sources were surely to be found in the area.

As they walk, Mira tells him about the ancient times, of a world ages before the collapse. She tells him about the Ojibwe people who had known these lush archipelagos; how they mined sheets of copper surrendered by primordial glaciers, cultivated wild rice, and named thousands of islands from their birchbark canoes. In many ways, Tate’s life is closer to the Ojibwe than hers, as she is old enough to remember motorized boats, incandescent touchscreens, and basic plumbing. But she has the same eyes the Ojibwe did, eyes that saw a world laden with pigments of all hues visible to the human eye.

The stony beach has a clear view of the northern isles, formations that slough off the larger island like cirrus clouds over a mountain range. Settling on the hill, they rest their sweaty bodies for a moment before setting up their workstation. While Tate unpacks their water, she pulls out their tools in pairs: hammer and chisel, sifting pan and bucket, mortar and pestle. 

They set to work, picking over the outcrop, teasing the formations, peering into algae-infested shallows from afar. To discourage him from approaching the water, Mira told Tate the story about Mishipeshu, the underwater monster who jealously guarded its lake stores of copper. While she regrets weaponizing his imagination, it’s a relief that he no longer needs complete surveillance during their excavations. 

Anyways, Tate has a talent for finding ores in the stones farther inland, and the tap-tap-tapping of his hammer and chisel echo in triplicate against the gentle lapping of blackened waves.

Feeling winded, Mira takes a short break and sits by a patch of brambles. The scenery is beautiful in its unnatural way. The lines formed by chalky beach and dark ridges under a terracotta sun could have in another time formed an abstract painting in a gallery. She searches the fog over the lake, squints at the sun, reassures herself that the weather conditions are still safe. 

Upon noticing the extended pause between taps, Mira twists in place, scans the jagged borders.

“Tate?”

A responding shriek, amplified and looped by the hard shale, momentarily separates her soul from her body. She stumbles, falls, catches a gloved hand on the sharp brambles, snaps them clean off. After a couple heartstopping seconds, she registers that the cry was not of catastrophe, but of delight. 

Terror resolves into indignation, but when Tate appears over the ridge, holding a massive chunk of crystalline copper over his head like a crown, she can’t stay angry.  

- - -

That night at home, Mira dozes in her chair and dreams in full color, as she always does.

The enormous Michigan sky is a shade of unspeakable blue in the summers, during which she had spent her girlhood vacations in the family cottage up north. Mackinac Bridge is a sea-green roller coaster flying into the air, serenaded by the circling tornado of gulls. 

Rolled down windows frame endlessly scrolling trees. A dissolving cone of tie-dye colored Superman ice cream liquifies down her wrist. Plastic cups of roadside cherries like burgundy baubles, double decker ferries with navy trimming, jewel-toned tulips. 

Ice-cold cans of ginger ale smoking from cracked-open lids. Sidewalks of crushed, molten mulberries and lime-green praying mantises. The prismatic sheen of lawn sprinklers, the metallic hose water, the clinging bathing suits.

Back then, it was the black and white or tea-colored photographs that recalled a long-ago era, a time lost to memory. Things sure had changed. 

- - -

The next day the good weather holds. Mira and Tate walk the landbridge down to the expanded Upper Peninsula, setting out as early as possible. Lake Superior, once vaguely wolf’s head-shaped, has since receded into a smaller patchwork, melding together land previously demarcated as either Canada or the United States, and now are neither. 

The dried up beds that used to be lake floor are etched with pedestrian highways. Old shipwrecks are landmarks that loom out of the haze, skeletons of steel with hulls stripped away by scavengers. At one point in the journey they pass through a valley of them languishing like beached whales, creaking in the wind in an otherworldly chorus. Tate marches proudly between them, his precious cargo visibly sagging in the depths of his pack.

It takes a couple hours to reach town. Keweenaw lies beyond the state’s former coastline, boasting a population upwards of 1500. Shanty roofs leak dark exhaust from spindly chimneys, open fires diffuse the smell of grilling meat through the open market. Sellers and perusers wrapped in ponchos and scarves create an undulating foreground.

Mira redirects her grandson’s every new distraction, gently steering him with a hand on the shoulder. She notes the heightened air of anxiety in the crowds, the half-made stalls with wares hastily laid out. Customers search the stands with particular urgency, taking quick glances at the orange sky. 

Finally relenting, she allows Tate to pore over the display of hatchets while she solicits the seller for news.

“What’s going on?”

“A storm’s coming in a day or two–They saw it from the watchtower this morning. Drop in pressure.”

Mira sighs heavily, thanks the man. With new vigor, she grasps Tate by the pack and leads him away. Reluctantly he allows himself to return to the flow of the harried crowd. 

They make their way to the artisanal wing of the market, where Tate perks up and breaks away, bounding toward their usual vendor. 

“Toby!”

The metalworker greets Tate with genuine warmth, which never fails to cheer her.

“How’s my number one supplier?” Toby holds out a gloved hand, giving Tate’s an exaggerated shake. The boy is wriggling with anticipation.

Swinging down his pack, he pulls out the copper he found the previous day. It is completely covered in patina, patchy and grey like colonies of moss. Mira catches sight of one naked oval of burnished metal. It winks at her as it catches the light.

“Holy shit!” The metalworker bursts out, and despite giving an apologetic glance to the old woman, repeats himself for emphasis, bending his knees to complete the effect. “Shit!”

Tate affects a business-like tone. “We’d like ten pounds of charcoal, please.” 

Toby guffaws at the child’s audacity. Mira cracks a smile beneath her scarf. “Are you going to be able to carry all that all the way home?” 

“Yeah!” 

The metalworker holds out his hands. Upon receiving the coral-like mass, he turns it over, tests its weight. 

“Haven’t seen a piece like this in years. Great job, bud. Yeah, I’d do ten pounds for it, but…”

“We’ll just take two pounds today,” Mira interjects, and he looks relieved. “ I know you’ll be good for it, Toby.”

“Appreciate that, Mira, with the storm coming and all. Are you selling at the market today? Staying in town to weather it through?”

“Afraid not, we’ll gather provisions and head straight back.”

“Shame. Wish you and Tate’d settle down in Keeweenaw. We worry about you guys being out there, making the hike here every time.”

“Thanks, Toby, we’ll be fine. We’d best be on our way, though.”

Toby invites Tate behind the stall to measure out the promised coal, leaving Mira to wait. Stomach pangs inform her it’s almost lunch time, and she contemplates their shopping list and updated departure time. She stares off into the distance beyond in the tarp-draped stalls, at the fast-moving clouds high above them. 

“Are you the lady that sells the dust?”

Mira turns to a young child at her elbow, their gender indeterminable behind a scarf-wrapped face. A chipped mug is grasped between both hands. Mira bends down.

“That’s right. Did you want to take some home?”

The child proves their intention by tipping the handle so that a small lump of coal falls into an open palm. Mira unfolds a small plastic bag, white with overuse, and carefully pries it open. Powdered copper comes pouring out and a small cloud of pale dust rises up from the mug. 

“Make sure you have a grown-up help you with that, okay?”

The child nods and retreats without another word. Mira returns her stash and the small piece of coal into the bag at her waistband. Soon enough, her grandson returns with their payment swinging in a tin bucket, shouting an energetic farewell back to Toby on the way out.

Eager to start on their journey back as soon as possible, Mira circulates the market, dipping into their new earnings to trade for supplies: new shoes for Tate, dried kelp and fish, jarred pickles and a small sack of rice for the larder. A replacement tarp and a ball of lumpy woolen yarn. She also lets Tate select a kebab from the grill to share for lunch, citing their shortened trip and hasty departure as justification for the rare indulgence. The fat coats their lips and tongues, the charred edges earthy and mouth-watering. 

“I saw that,” she brings up as he gnaws on his wooden skewer, attempting to elongate the experience as much as he can.

“What?” Tate mutters, teeth bared around the stick.

“You broke off a piece of the ore.”

A guilty grin. Reaching from his pocket, he unfurls his fingers to reveal a small tine of copper.

“I thought we’d use it tonight.” His gray eyes request her approval. She pats his head affectionately in response, ruffling his white hair. 

“Hey!” 

The shout is tinged and accusatory. With a start they locate a woman closing in on them, swinging a chipped mug in her aggressive stride. “Are you the copper seller?”

“Yes, what–”

“My daughter didn’t have permission to do that. I want our coal back, we don’t want this.” The furious mother thrusts the mug forward. In the background Mira sees the girl in the background, watching the scene from afar. Something about her posture is rumpled, like an understuffed doll that can’t fully sit up.

Mira nods understandingly and produces the small lump. “Take it. But keep the copper. Let her have it, it’s on me.”

The woman’s sour expression deepens with suspicion. “We don’t need it.”

All around them, the colors are beige and brittle, the colors of dying and drawn out things. The sky, its exhausting, sickly orange, beats down on a tired earth. The discolored mug in the woman’s hand contains a promise–a momentary glimpse into what the world once had been. 

Yes, Mira agrees, with mouths to feed and disasters to prepare for, adults are too sensible for such things. But children…

Mira shares a glance with Tate, who looks back earnestly, eyes shining. “Please, I insist. Let her have it.”

- - -

They hurry their way back to the Isle. On the way they see silent flashes of lightning over Canada, dark storm clouds gathering on the farthest edge of the horizon. 

Upon return they promptly see to their respective duties. Tate fills containers from the rain barrels and Mira starts shuttering the house, covering all windows and doors. The wind picks up, rattling the planks on the porch, scattering detritus all around. 

Inside, all available surfaces are used to store water containers. Tate has already pulled out his favorite books from one of the storage boxes, getting ready to bunker down. Mira gives one last glance outside before gently tugging the front door shut, pulling down the accordion shutter, latching it in place. 

The darkened house dramatically accentuates the details of their limited senses; the wind howls and trembling lines of light leak through poorly fitted coverings. There’s just enough so that when their eyes adjust, they can maneuver around the house.

It gets fully dark long before the storm fully hits them. The roof shakes so hard that it creates a frantic percussion overhead. Mira loads the furnace and lights it so that they can spend their final waking hours in light. After an anticlimactic dinner, they sit without speaking, drenched in the red light of the fire. Tate rereads his book, Mira knits a new scarf. The swishing of pages and clacking of needles is fully drowned out by the weather reaching full swing. 

When the flames in the furnace reach their fullest height, Tate tucks a bookmark in his page and retrieves the pestle and mortar. Mira yawns and lifts her project to appreciate the length of her work thus far. The boy sits cross-legged on the floorboard as he grinds, frowning in concentration.

Wordlessly he holds up the mortar for her to appraise. There are still large pieces swimming in the bottom layer of dust. She puts aside her knitting to take it from him, her expert hands applying the needed force to get the powder as fine as possible.

“Can I do it?” Tate whispers. 

“Pinch it gently, keep your hand high.” She pours out the freshly crushed copper into his waiting palm.

It sparkles like stardust over the blaze. When the light changes, their sitting room transforms into an underwater cavern.

The flame is a comet, surfing with its head down, ready to kiss the earth, its icy tail flickering in the light of a gentler sun. The color always brings to mind the auroras she had seen from her backyard in the dead of winter, on those rare, special nights. Or the color of glacier water gushing and folding into the rivers that would one day flow into Lake Superior. And Lake Superior–restored and whole, is a basin of liquid lapis, mirroring the line of trees along the Canadian frontier.

She thinks of fireworks, mixed with their own concoctions of powdered metals, lighting up the sky at the peak of summer vacation, raining enormous sparkles over the waters. Of afternoons spent floating in half submerged kayaks, bobbing along a gradient that is turquoise in the deep and tinged green closer to shore. Ample clouds and crossing contrails share the azure airspace, an ocean of churning jetstreams.

In this world, Tate’s eyes would show off their true tones–twin aquamarines, eagerly drinking in all the colors and vistas, looking at everything around them. At the bluegills flashing under webs of sunlight, which he would try to catch with a bucket and bare hands. At cups of wriggling worms, wet and disgustingly alive, leaving wakes of slime and guts on jeans. At the flighty chipmunks scouting the trails, at the voluptuous robins sprinting across wild lawns. The carpet of evergreen needles tenders soft footfalls and a sweet, coniferous fragrance all around him. 

Here, his body is covered not with lumpy scarves or ragged ponchos, but with a graphic t-shirt and cargo shorts that are age-appropriately unfashionable. His hands aren’t stained with patina and he doesn’t survive on dried or salted foods. He feasts on campfire-warmed hot dogs, squishy pocketed candy bars and tall glasses of fibrous orange juice. He gets to nap on long road-trips cradled in his seatbelt, and at the end someone will carry him up and out. 

When he looks out, a kind world holds him in its embrace. 

“Nana!”

She startles awake. The smudged embers glow dark orange, the shadows dance on Tate’s face. “Nana, you fell asleep.”

Mira pats his hand, kisses the top of his head. 

She opens her arms, and he crawls into them, though he’s getting far too old to do so. Together, they listen to the rain and wind bashing against their little house, the memory of blue still vivid in their minds.