Ch 42, Day 3: A Forest of Metal Skeletons

37.1 kms, Sept 4, 2012

The Traveler gazes out across the landscape, taking in what he's seeing. It looks like the set from from a Mad Max movie. An image of a brutal, lifeless landscape. No plants. No birds. No animals. No people. Just the repetitive movements of the last oil drilling machines that haven't broken down yet are swinging up and down, up and down like giant sewing machines.

All around is a forest. But not a forest of life-giving trees. Rather a forest of rusted metallic skeletons, scores of oil drilling rigs scattered all across the gray landscape. A forest of death.

He takes a few moments to let it all sink in. Then, suddenly it hits him. This is where it all began. This is where oil was first mechanically drilled from the ground. This is where the The Age of Oil was born. And now... 150 years later... perhaps he's getting a glimpse of how it might end.

He continues walking. A cluster of houses appear. Miserable looking homes with ragged, dirt roads. Whatever positive things these oil wells have brought to the world, they certainly don't seem to have benefited the people who live here very much. A polluted, gray wasteland with poisoned groundwater and lung killing air... this does not look like a pleasant place to live by any standard.

The Traveler walks along briskly, suddenly self conscious of how conspicuous he looks, an obvious outsider wandering through a neighborhood that outsiders never visit. But no one seems to notice him. He is like a ghost. An observer. A mere passerby who sees, absorbs, but has not effect on the world as he passes through.

Finally he reaches the edge of the neighborhood and gazes out again at the spectre of industrial death and environmental destruction. There's something about this spot that is symbolic. Symbolic of the entire planet at this time in it's history. It is here that you can see the birth of industrial power... its rise... peak and ultimate demise... all in one vast, gray panorama.

“So what was the point of it all?” He finds himself mumbling. “... To live better, happier? … then why does human progress make so many people miserable?”

The Temple of Fire

He continues on, trudging down the ragged streets, rarely making eye contact with the dwellers of this place. He reaches a cemetery where the dwellers of this land who perhaps spent their lives in this godforsaken place, finally end their earth experience...

Unable to continue on, he turns around and goes the other way.

Suddenly, in front of him, is a castle. A sturdy stone structure with semi-arched entrance and a tower in front. This is the Temple of Fire.

For thousands of years, this was a place of mystery and superstition. An eternal flame rose from the ground, burning and burning, but never going out. People came to observe, and since they couldn't explain it, they worshiped it. Worshiped the fire rising from the ground. Pilgrims came from far and wide to worship at this spot.

All this changed with the arrival of science and research. Scientists, entrepreneurs and capitalists came here, not to humbly bow to theses flames, but rather to figure out how these fires could make them rich. They correctly concluded that there was a vast amount of flammable fuel under the ground. Fuel that could be used to to power their machines and factories. They extracted this fuel in massive quantities. For a time, 1/5th of the world's oil extraction took place in just this one city.

As a result, the flames of this Fire Temple were extinguished.

The Traveler goes inside to the center courtyard of the castle. Here, a new fire has been lit, a token reminder of a world that used to be. In the dingy rooms surrounding the courtyard are statues of Hindu priests who once made their abode here.

Nowadays, this Fire Temple is still the symbol of the country, even though almost all the population is Muslim... and very few people worship fire any more. However, oil, the fuel of this fire, is what has made this country what it is today.

The Traveler continues on, walking through the dusty neighborhoods, along long stretches of open road and empty fields. On to another livelier neighborhood of nice restaurants and folks who appear to be benefiting at least a little of the good things brought to the by the Age of Oil... steady income... variety of food and things to spend their money on. More pleasant looking dwellings. The Traveler joins the crowd in a large cafeteria-style restaurant where he can just point and pick whatever dish strikes his fantasy. The post-Apocalyptic wasteland he walked through just a few hours ago seems a million miles away.

But he knows it isn't. He knows that it wasn't just a depressing landscaped he happened to walk through. It was a Vision. A Vision of the entire swath of the Age of Oil from its simple beginning to its cruel, self-destructive end. A Vision, not just of a run down neighborhood of Baku... but rather a parable of the entire world of the 19th-21st century.

Hundreds of years of the Human Experience, crammed into just a couple of hours.