“It was an earthquake,” I heard my brother Arthur's quavering voice whisper reluctantly like the faint vibration of a weak guitar string. I vividly remember the shock that befell me. The earthquake was nothing like I had imagined it to be. I had read about them in books and heard about them at school. But this was the first time I had experienced one. It was a blend of discord. A deafening silence. Everything around me moved slowly. Debris turned and swirled in irregular circles as structures towering above the liquified soil sliced through the air attacking the ground. Startling ‘crashes’ and ‘crumbles’ clawed at the echoing squeals.
My brother grabbed my trembling hand and we ran to the shelter; a tiny, dilapidated shack made of planks of rotten driftwood thrown together. A narrow bed with a springy, torn mattress lay fixed in an alcove beside a demolished bedside table. Arthur gently placed me on the bed and ran to the other corner of the room where he crouched. I held my breath. My heart beat rhythmically like an impatient animal longing to escape its cage. I stared eagerly at the cruddy cracked windows with dead flies encrusted on them as I fiddled with a flaxen tendril that tumbled about my face. The porpoise sky was vaguely visible through the irregular holes filling the ceiling through which I glanced, deploring the loss of my home (and the home of many others); left in a dystopian state.
We were leaving now. Whatever was left of us, at least. It was just me and Arthur- he was all I had. I tried not to think of my mother who I was never going to see again. I spent hours tossing the meagre essentials I still was blessed to own, into a small bag. We were going to restart. From scratch. A clean slate upon which I could rewrite my existence, and those of many others to come. You’d think otherwise, but I was enraptured. I was about to leave this cage of dense air, heavy with wheezes toxic fumes, odours and dust coughed up from ancient factories, behind. I was about to leave this world of darkness shrouded in a blackened firmament hanging precariously above my vulnerable head.
Piles of clouds dusted grey drifted across the sky. I knew that soon a massive shuttle was going to fly through that obscuring lump of charcoal billow and take me to a planet of opportunities. As recovery proceeded, Arthur set up a radio in our shelter. I listened for hours on end, fascinated by the extensive research scientists went through to find us a new place to live. My heart was tickled pink imagining the newly discovered tropical forests, leaping rivulets and streams. I almost felt the warmth of the incandescent golden rays that one scientist rambled about. My wild imagination pictured the endless possibilities in this new world that took away all my patience and the trauma of my torpedoed home. I waited days, watching each person get their chance to leave this earth behind, to leave me behind. “When do we get to leave, Artie?” I asked my brother as my stomach rumbled like a dump truck clinging and labouring up an onerous road. Sweating profusely, he answered patiently, “Tomorrow.”
That one word made me forget the uncomfortable silence that had bred malevolent thoughts in my head for days. I forgot about the unbearable starvation in my air-filled stomach as images of a brightly coloured land smeared with grass as green as fresh emeralds flashed through my mind. The mystical smell of the air, ripe with petrichor on a summer morning. Leaves as soft as Mother’s hair, that dance to the ground, kissing your face. An opalescent arch smearing the soft surface of the arctic blue sky. Glistening dew drops slipping and sliding along bundles of butterfly weed. Waves in the vast oceans frolicking and capering as clouds drift across the sky like flocks of migratory birds waiting to explore new lands. Glinting sunshine, emanating its beguiling luminescence onto the tiny little houses, built anew. I imagined it would be just like those pictures in Grandfather’s old picture frames. I always wanted to live in that time. I wish I never arrived so late- I missed all things beautiful in my planet's past. Before my head collapsed onto the bed, I pulled one particular picture out of my pocket. I grabbed it from our house just as soon as the earthquake began. It was a crinkled picture of my mom and dad. They looked so happy on that juniper green lawn. I wanted to escape to a place like that immediately. “Tomorrow,” I told myself as warm thoughts sent me off to sleep.
Lifting my tattered damask cloth that served as a threadbare blanket, I awoke to the copious particles of soot meandering up my nostrils. The warm air was redolent of mildew. I looked around briefly, as the bubbling excitement inside me, gradually came to a stop. Where was my brother? I stepped onto the russet floorboard with chips of wood springing up like the quills of a porcupine. I felt a rock climb up my throat and another pebble sink into my stomach. I nudged my door which swung open; the gale patrolling the barren land. Where were my neighbours? I hobbled over to the edge of our lane littered with shanty shelter homes. I watched the undulating white-flecked waves greedily reaching out to grab the land as if it was about to swallow it and every bit of rubble that remained out of place. Including me.
"Artie?" I bellowed as loud as my tired and weak voice could. "Artie?" I screeched louder; a lump in my throat.
I missed my chance. My people had fled. Everything and everyone I had ever cared about was gone. I wanted to believe that my brother simply forgot, but was unable to fully convince myself of that fact. Was he so worried and stressed, and that he left me back in fret? Or was he intentionally leaving me behind to rot, like an impediment to his ‘soon to come’ free lifestyle? I slumped in a musky corner. There was no point in running. My legs felt like noodles, and my tongue; a sponge. I longed for water, I longed for food. My legs bore an intense ache that slowly crept up my body. I was clearly no match for the raging seas, rising like a fierce monarch ready to destroy all that didn’t belong. I knew it wasn’t an earthquake. We had failed our planet, the way my closest family had failed me. It was taking revenge, for the trauma they put it through. I felt betrayed. My people, my family, and my friends all were responsible for this destruction. I was just bearing the brunt. Alone. I felt cold, moist droplets approaching my eyeballs, but I had no tears left to cry. I was too parched, and all the water was contaminated. I sat for hours, facing the karma of the billions of people that were responsible for the planet’s ire.
It could no longer hold the lethal gasses sent flying into the air nor the deluge of viscous bronze liquid carpeting the surface of its crystalline cerulean blue waters. It could no longer feel the torment, of watching all it had created get destroyed. It could no longer watch its impenetrable shamrock-green canopies get wiped away, only to make space for intimidating pewter structures releasing puffs of smoke relentlessly. It could no longer endure the twinging pain of keen blades piercing through its crust to extract its bounty of crystals and riches. I now knew exactly how it felt. Mother Nature was fighting back. I too wanted to fight back, but I lacked the power and strength she had. So, I was stuck. To mourn with my one friend, the Earth, and simply endure the everlasting torment. Like it had, for hundreds of years. After a couple of sombre thoughts tried to overtake my weakened mind, I resisted. I convinced myself that this is where I was meant to be. After all, how much worse could the damage get?
~Jyoti Shah
(Here I tried to write something different- something I normally wouldn't.)
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