The Man Who Bought the Sky

Once, there was a very wealthy man, whose treasure chest was overflowing with wealth. He decided, one day, he owned the sky. No one checked to see if he owned the sky, or even if the sky could be bought, and if it could, just whom would the man pay to get the deed to the sky.

Many people never bothered questioning the man about it. If, he said, he owned the sky, well then, he must damn well own it. After all, he told the masses hundreds of times, he was a very good at business. The people went about living meagerly, and once in awhile would look up at the sky, and someone would say, “Boy, I wished I owned the sky.” They really wished they did, because they were barely making it. They just worked, and handed over a great deal of their earnings in the form of taxes, utilities, food, fuel, medical care, and all, just to stay alive. One guy said, I’d settle for just a cloud. He didn't have any place to stay. He was called a "homeless person."

One day, the man who owned the sky went to Europe and met with about two-hundred people who represented a group of countries that wanted to live a while longer, and didn’t want to die. They didn’t feel like becoming extinct. So, at the meeting they said, “The sky is very dirty, and the weather is changing, because of it.” The man who owned the sky said, “My gut tells me it’s not.” Many of them rolled their eyes at the man who owned the sky. They went home. So, did the owner of the sky. His gut was telling him to get a Big Mac, and a Diet Coke.

The owner of the sky had friends who owned huge amounts of fossil fuels. These fuels were deep underground. Layers of earth weighed heavy creating pressure on stuff that went extinct, like dinosaurs, and plants.

He especially liked coal; he called it beautiful, and was very affectionate when talking about coal. He went to places where there was a lot of coal. Poor places now, that got poorer because once upon a time they liked the idea of money too. The coal owners hired them way back then, so they could go under the ground and dig away at coal. A lot of them were immigrants, who were just happy to make a few cents. They liked to survive by eating, and that took money. The coal owners knew this, so they built company stores, too. That took a lot of the people's money, so much so, that it was almost like working for nothing.

Many got sick later with a disease called, “Black Lung.” The government didn’t care, and they ignored the sick men, who eventually died. All around, they dug coal, underground, on top of the ground, just below the ground, all around. They killed trees, and the clean water soon wasn’t clean. Some kids knew where other kids came from because of the orange hair they had from washing it in the acid waters the coal companies left behind.

The man who owned the sky heard that story and said it was, “fake news.” Look at me, I’m orange all over,” he’d quip. The crowd would laugh and wave signs with his name on it. Some would chant simple sentences. It was a zoo-like atmosphere. "He sure is smart," one lady said to a guy next to her. "Yup." the man replied. Another man wearing a red ball cap said, "he's the best, he owns the sky." Then they went back to chanting.

One day, the man who owned the sky changed all environmental regulations about clean air and water. The coal owners, stood behind him, and one of the men smiled broadly when he was given the pen, used to sign the new order. Soon, they would all be richer.

“Beautiful clean coal,” said the man who owned the sky, “is coming back.”

It came back. They dug holes everywhere. They piled coal higher than the Eiffel Tower, and it kept piling up. No other country would buy the coal. This angered the man who owned the sky, and he caught a lot of hell from the coal owners. They lost money. They hated that. Soon, the men who dug the coal were no longer needed. They went home. They drank some beer and watched football. Sometimes, they'd sneak a few buckets of coal from the big piles to stay warm during the cold winter. Things weren't looking all that good.

The man who owned the sky grew angrier, and decided if no one wanted to buy his beautiful clean coal, he’d just burn it all. He didn’t know much about coal to be honest. In fact, he didn’t know a lot about anything. One night, he sent his butler out to buy him a disposable lighter and to show him how to use it. A few hours later, he mastered it.

Off to Kentucky he went to find the biggest pile of coal they had. He found it, you couldn’t miss it, because it matched the surrounding night, and he found it by walking into it. He lit it up, and then went back to Washington.

He called his friend in Russia and told him what he did, he wanted some praise from him. He also wanted him to buy coal, he said he better hurry. It was going fast. He didn’t get any praise or a sale. So, he called his friend who was a Prince in Saudi Arabia, and told him, that he was burning all of the country’s coal. He waited for the Prince to tell him, what a great job he did, but the Prince wasn’t saying much, he thought maybe his phone might be tapped, and he didn’t want to hear any shit about anything. In fact, he hung up. He was paranoid about this journalist he ordered murdered. Besides, he had lots of oil and didn't need any coal.

The man who owned the sky, feeling lonely, got up from his desk and slid the curtains back to look out the window. Every direction he looked was black smoke rolling up into his sky. The orange glow on the horizon circled the earth and it almost looked like the sun during a total solar eclipse.

The sky got extremely dirty in a few weeks. The coal smoldered everywhere it had been stockpiled. Every place there was coal it caught fire. The man, who owned the sky, told his daughter in an email, “Now, look at all that beautiful coal the countries could have bought.” He tried to send her a picture from his camera, but didn’t know how to do it. He decided to go on Twitter. He tweeted, “Too bad, you didn’t buy our coal. If you have any, I’ll put a 200 –percent tariff on it.” No one replied. They were too busy trying to breathe.

One morning, two days later, the man who owned the sky stepped outside surrounded by gasping men. “Is it morning or night, it’s so dark,” he said. No one answered; they were too busy trying to get some oxygen into their lungs. So, the man who owned the sky stormed off, and went to his office. He sat down heavily in his chair. He didn’t know whom to call, he never felt so ignored in his life. He didn’t care that his hair looked like a possum pelt with mange. He craved a Diet Coke, and a Big Mac. He dialed his secretary, no answer. He slumped sadly in the polished wooden chair.

A month later, the planet wheezed its last.

* * *

The mothership dropped a scout saucer manned by two big-eyed aliens, who had visited the planet many times before. The two communicated by telepathy.

“Wow, Gorex, the last time we were here, there was some green.”

“It looks like one big black ball, now.”

Gorex looked at the screen on his saucer’s instrument panel, and reported to the mothership, “Signs of life, non-existent.”

“Return to base,” was the telepathic reply. The small saucer shot across the sky, A sky not owned by anyone, anymore.

?2018 Ronnie Ray Jenkins

Books by Ronnie Ray Jenkins