Wild and Tranquil

This story is about solitude in the face of impending extinction. A man past middle age decides to turn his back on a doomed society and set himself up in a bush camp far away from the civilization that has systematically encroached on and decimated the planet’s environment.
The atmosphere was becoming so polluted breathing was difficult and every day, sapped each individual life force, the rainfall was so acidic, instead of nourishing the plant life as it always had, it caused green leaves to shrivel and the roots to die. The oceans no longer supported their former abundant, thriving sea life and lapped onto the shores in listless, oily slurps.
Our character packed his four wheel drive with all the equipment and supplies he could carry and retreated into the mountains and dense bush land of New Zealand’s South Island, in its largely wild and almost unexplored South Westland. Here the mountain streams were less polluted and the leaves on the vegetation still green. Even much of the animal life still survived and he was still able to awake each morning to the bird’s early chorus.
The book follows his years of solitude and introspection as he carves out an existence in the wild and how a chance visitor in the night gives some purpose to his life. Perhaps there is something in this writing most of us can relate to in some stage of our lives.