written april 2026 to submit to a journal, ultimately rejected. honestly imo kind of a mid short story. inspired by community concerns of data center construction in rural areas where i have lived.
We hiked up the hill behind the house to get a look over towards the pass. The tree cover, sparse as it was, kept us from burning too bad, and we zig-zagged to stay under the biggest branches. We stepped over another dried-out little off-shoot of the creek and got up above the first ridge, and I looked back down towards the house. You were panting with your hands on your knees beside me, so I set my pack down and stretched out my back, squinting against the sun to survey what was left of what had been our sort-of home. It hadn’t been perfect, certainly, with ground squirrels, and mice, but it was shady in the summer, warm enough in the winter, and we’d managed to put together a little makeshift greenhouse. It was even a short walk to the hot springs, before they got bought up and cordoned off. The writing had been on the wall from the beginning, though, with signs up and down the highway about the plans for the newest data center. “NEW JOBS COMING SOON IN OUR STATE-OF-THE-ART COOLING FACILITIES!” and “WE'LL BUY YOUR LAND AND WATER RIGHTS AT MARKET PRICE!” and all that. The project just kept getting bigger, and the projected maps spread farther out across the valley, and then our neighbors were getting knocks on their doors asking them to leave. They’d be given “generous” offers of housing in the company dormitories and jobs building the new centers, and, if someone didn’t agree, you’d see a report within the week about a tragic house fire, no survivors and no heirs, but what luck: the deceased had left everything to the company just a day before the fire! Maybe we should have left after the first fire. Or the second. We’d talk about it. You’d say things like, “There must be something wrong with us for staying.” I’d say things like, “I guess we have a death wish.” We’d laugh about it, but, even with the mice and the ground squirrels, neither of us could leave. Somebody else would need to make the decision for us. And, I think, on some level, we kind of thought the spreading boundaries of the construction zone would magically stop just before they reached our front door, even though they weren’t stopping before anybody else’s front doors. I’d wake up early and tend to the greenhouse before it got hot. You’d scrub the vegetables and have me tie back your hair for you while you cooked. The land we could see from our windows seemed to get emptier and flatter by the day, the only activity most of the time the construction crews crawling over houses and barns and fences. We heard less and less from our neighbors, knew less and less of what was going on in the valley. The local paper went from documenting protests to congratulating the company on another quarter of record profits. We were cut off. I’d watch you reading by candlelight on the nights we didn’t have power, and I’d think the flicker of flame against your face was beautiful. So we stayed put, and, after we got the knock on our door and said no, we hid out in the fields for a few nights, watching. When a few visitors in company trucks showed up in the middle of the night and found the house empty and dark, they forewent the fire and just busted the place up a bit, knocking out windows and kicking in doors. The worst was watching them tear down the greenhouse. Now, in the light, it was unrecognizable, walls split open, roof torn off, soil already drying out in the heat. You were digging through my pack for water, and I let you take a few pulls before I took the bottle from you. I didn’t need to tell you we had to save it. I stored it, pulled the pack back onto my shoulders, and started up the hill again without looking to see if you were following. It was well past noon by the time we made it up beyond the main body of the creek and to the top of the hill where we’d be able to see the pass. It was easier to spot in winter, back when they still cleared the concrete off after the snow. The road would look like a dark crack in that part of the mountain. Now, it took some shifting and searching to spot it, crumbling into the dirt and the grass. I heard you swear under your breath. The path was supposed to be our way up and out of the valley. Somewhere else wouldn’t be much better, but it would be something, at least until another company moved in to build a new center, or flood the land for cooling, or clear some space to park their cars. We hadn’t been over by the pass in a while, but it was a major road; they wouldn’t be able to block it. But cutting across the road was a massive metal gate, tagged with company logos. It looked like it had been there for months, crusted with dirt, signs already getting sunbaked. We were company property, like the land and the water. I turned to look at you. You were turned, yourself, looking away off into the valley spread out below us. In the bed of what had once been a massive pair of twin lakes, the first of four planned data centers gleamed in the sun. We'd only been able to see the foundation of the second from our bedroom window. The air around the building twisted and shimmered with the heat. The shining metal reflected in your eyes like a flame at your side while you read.
directory: