Stories

“Blue Island” by Adhi Sukhdial Today we showered. We always all shower with our cold water, on the first Sunday of the month. This Sunday is particularly special though, because it is also the first day of 2186, which means we will look through our family photo album! My little sister Maisie runs around singing, “photographs, photographs, let’s look at photographs.” Papa gets out the leather bound book of pictures. Leather is the skin of animals pounded and soaked in urine. They used to use it all the time before the Microplanet law was put in place. The Microplanet law bans eating at will- it says a person should eat one sturdy meal a day and waste nothing. They also banned eating meat or dairy and using any kind of plastic or fossil fuels. I’ve heard something awful would have happened if they had not put that law in place. Each family is only supposed to have one child, due to overpopulation. Any others will be executed. Because of this we have had to keep Maisie a secret, sharing our food rations with her and sometimes hiding her in the basement. I look at Maisie with sad eyes as she skips around the small house without a care in the world. I’ll never understand how she can be so happy knowing her life is at risk every single day. “Play, play, play with me, June,” sings Maisie. “You can play after we look at photographs,” says Mother sternly. “Alright,” says Maisie, since we all know there is no point in negotiating with Mother. Papa opens the fat book. We all look at it giddy with excitement. They used to read books all the time but no longer can because it wastes paper. Papa shows us the first page where there is a picture of an eight-year-old girl. She wears a frilly, layered dress. We don’t have frills and layers anymore because it would use too much dye and fabric. The girl is sitting on a beach but it is nothing like the beaches we have — the water is a beautiful turquoise blue and the sand looks so smooth. I can almost hear the waves crashing onto the beach. Now the ocean is a murky brown and the waves roll onto the microplastic sand. Underneath is a picture of a young man on a sailboat. They used to travel between continents by sailboat or airplane. We stopped using sailboats because of the giant whirlpool of plastic, which will suck anything in the sea into it. We stopped using airplanes because they released tons of fuel into the already polluted gray sky. I heard that before the water level rose there was a continent called North America and try to imagine what it was like. This thought intrigues me but it also scares me — what if Europe sank under the sea? Mother says North America is just a myth. I pretend to agree but secretly I think it was real. Papa turns the page and as he does, I hear a voice from our speaker. Every home has a speaker that gives instructions in emergencies. I’ve never actually heard it go on before but right away I know what it is. The voice on the speaker says, “Due to rising water levels, we are holding an evacuation at six o’clock tomorrow morning. Pack your possessions and meet at the city centre. Anyone who is older than fifty or younger than three will be left behind.” Maisie begins to run around the house, crying. “What are we gonna do? What’s gonna happen to us? What’s happeni-?” “Calm down child!” says Mother sharply and then more gently, “I know you can do this Maisie Daisy, you just have to trust me, everything’s going to be okay.” Sniffling, Maisie nods her head and wipes her eyes with her sleeve. I’ve never heard Mother sound so gentle. I guess I just figured she was always stern and strict. Mother straightens up and scolds in her normal brisk tone “Well, what are we waiting for, we’ve got a big day tomorrow, everyone go pack before we eat and then we’ve got to rest.” After we’ve packed our meager possessions and ate our meal of roasted vegetables, it’s time for bed. Maisie and I hug goodnight to Mother and Papa. As we are leaving the room, Papa, who never seems to speak, says, “remember how blessed we are, everything is going to be okay.” Once we’re out of earshot, Maisie whispers “What was that about?” I just shake my head and say, “Come on, let’s get to bed.” We all wake early to the sound of the loudspeaker blaring, “Everybody who is part of the evacuation, please meet at the town square in ten minutes.” We get there with one minute to spare and in all the chaos nobody seems to notice Maisie as we join the crowd. I hear the same man who was on the loudspeaker shouting through a megaphone: “Everyone follow me please and watch the cliff edge.” We begin to climb into the Alps. After we’ve hiked for hours I finally think to look behind me. I see our little huts surrounded by gray water and shriveled grass. I imagine how it used to be, with blue oceans, sandy beaches and green trees. I look at Papa who is walking next to me and say, “Do you think that if our ancestors had treated the earth differently, it wouldn’t be ruined today?” “Maybe,” murmurs father. “If they hadn’t been so ignorant, thinking they were superior to everything else, maybe they could have made a difference and the world wouldn’t be how it is today.” My eyes fly open and sitting up in bed, I shudder. I look out my window at the sun rising over the sparkling blue ocean. It was just a dream after all. But will it be a dream forever or is this what the world will be

I had never liked the ocean, and that was before I fell off the boat and into it, headfirst. My dad and I were on one of his boating trips. He was a scientist on climate change, and every few months, he ventured out into the deep Pacific waters, and took a temperature of the water, with a tool called a thermometer. This was the first time he had let me come along, I was ten years old after all, and despite my great dislike of the water, I had always been eager to see what he had done on these mysterious trips, and when he walked into my room the prior Sunday and asked if I wanted to come along, I had jumped at the opportunity. Now, though, gripping the bar that surrounded the seats, as the boat rocked back and forth on the teetering water, I wasn’t so sure. My dad unlocked a cabinet beneath the control panel, and pulled out a bin, in which he kept all of his gear. He pulled out his thermometer from the bag, and placed it gingerly on his palm. He grabbed my hand, and helped me steadily to my feet, and he lead me slowly across the deck to the slide door where he took the temperature. “You’re okay, Tara.” He soothed, pushing me gently down onto the cushiony seat, and carefully opening the slide door. “Let’s take temp, okay?” He looked up at me, and I swallowed the lump in my throat, and moved my head in what I hoped was I nod. I was so scared and seasick, I didn’t know exactly what I was doing. He held my arm with one hand, and with the other, he slowly extended his fingers into the dark, murky water, with the thermometer clenched tightly in his hand. He stopped when his elbow was completely submerged in water. “That’ll do,” he said, and glanced at me “Last time I checked was last month, in September. It was 64.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Let’s hope it’s changed.” He sighed, and pushed a tuft of graying hair out of his eyes, resuming his grasp on my wrist. It was silent for a moment, except for the rhythmic slosh of the small waves against the side of the boat. Suddenly, there came a beep! from down below. My dad and I automatically turned towards it, like a puppet string connecting us both. My dad reached down and pulled out the thermometer. The reading blinked on and off, in black, digital font: 64.71. My dad heaved a frustrated sigh. “It’s only a little bit more than last month.” I offered soothingly. “Tara,” he said, in a clipped voice “.6 degrees of an increase isn’t a little bit, not in a span of a month.” The next moment seemed to happen in slow motion. I moved towards the slide door, crouching down onto the bumpy white surface of my dad’s boat, and slowly extending my hand outwards to feel the water. My dad moved across the deck to the steering compartment, and pressed the ignition as soon as my hands dipped into the water’s murk. I felt the surface of the boat beneath my bare feet slip away, I felt myself plummet into what felt like ice, my legs kicking beneath me. My head dunked below the surface, and a mouthful of salt swallowed down my throat. “Dad!” I screamed, gasping for breath “DAD!” My dad’s boat was fast, and while he had just ignited the engine moments ago, he was already some fifty yards away. Somehow, the wind carried my words over to him. He turned around, and his face contracted, seeing me struggling in the water. “Tara!” Without a second’s hesitation, he put the boat in reverse and revved up the engine. He brought it ten yards from where I stood, and as though he did this every day, dove off the boat from the bar. He had a rope with him, and as soon as he got a few feet from me, threw the rope to me. I immediately understood, and grabbed the rope with all my might, my breath coming in rasps. He pulled me behind him, with so much strength, strength I didn’t know my father even had, and we got to the boat in seconds. “I’m sorry, T.” Dad sighed, and rubbed a hand through his ruffled hair. “Dad, that was actually pretty cool!” I told him, and has I thought about it more, it was. “I mean, I’ve always wanted to see what you do. You and your colleagues have probably fallen in before! I remember the stories you used to tell me. Remember Mike? He fell in taking the temperature!” I grinned, the sun warming my back. Dad shook his head, smiling “I don’t even know how that happened.” I laughed, and moved to the other side of the boat, where the sliding door opened. “What’s that?” I asked curiously, pointing to an invisible piece of dirt. “What’s what?” Dad replied, hurriedly walking over. He bent down “Where?” In one fluid motion, I slide open the door, and pushed him over the side of the boat, laughing. He grinned before he even hit the water- he must have been used to it. “Smooth move, Ex-lax!” he teased, catching my ankle, and pulling me down with him. “Hey!” I called, but I was laughing as I hit the cold water, that didn’t really feel that cold anymore. Happiness that I couldn’t even describe lit through me, warming my body despite being in the icy water. That evening when we got home, my mom was waiting for us. She wrapped me in a hug, but after a moment pulled back. “Why are you so wet?” She asked in amusement. She didn’t sound angry, just a little amused. My dad and I looked at each other “A little water fight.” I answered, and we both burst out laughing.

The sky was smashing and attractive. It was the hue of tomatoes, marmalade and freshly picked lemons. Cumulus clouds were slowly drifting by and the sun was just about to go hiding behind the endless mountains. Of course, you only see that kind of stunning site on TV nowadays where rich companies just make winsome backdrops of impossible sights and post them to make humans think that they are living in an appealing world. The cruel truth is, we are not. Living in a lively world. We are living in a pile of junk. In every corner of the Earth is piled with garbage. Grandpa always tells about when his grandpa was small, Earth used to look like what it looks like on TV now. “There were these creatures called animals back then, and plants and trees and mountains and oceans,” he says. “My grandfather was a great man. He was a farmer and he had a great life with his cows.” My twin brother and I cannot imagine that. The world today is hopeless to be in the shape of its past again. The past is the past. It’s gone. It will never be the same. In my bed, I tossed and turned just to think of one question that’s bubbling up. How can we make the world back to what it was? However, there must be a way and we just don’t know it yet. I tossed my spoon in my cereal bowl and whizzed to the front lobby part of our house. Mom tossed me and Cade our black air helmet from a drawer in the lobby. It’s for breathing because the air outside is polluted very badly. The last gasp of clean air outside ran out before I was born and rich people use to buy air for a good fortune. Nowadays, we all have clean air inside our houses and heavy machines to eliminate the bad air. “Be thafe! ” Dad called from the kitchen in his weird accent. When we were all set, Cade and I go into a glass door that leads outside. It keeps the clean air on the inside. The glass door siren makes a beep, indicating that someone’s going outside. The outside layer of the glass door popped open and leads us to the mighty world outside. Like always, the world was colourless. Houses sat across from ours looks identical. There were no trees, no grass, no anything. Just people walking on streets with air helmets, looking down at the ground as if there were money laying on the concrete. We don’t talk on the way to school. We looped around a corner to Main Street, where our school was located. After going through the same glass doors, the busy hall in our school was presented. I took off my air helmet and left Cade and walked to my locker to put my stuff down. As I stuffed my things into my locker, I see my friend Eliana standing beside my locker in the corner of my eyes. We blab and walk towards homeroom as the bell went. I almost dozed off with Ms. Trevelyan’s soothing voice in history class. It’s the most boring class ever even though Ms. Trevelyan did her best to make it interesting. Everybody is aware that the past is glory and it hurts to look back from what we have now. Ms. Trevelyan knows, too. She ’s not brainwashed by the blinding world. She took a glance at our class and slammed the thick history book shut. Then, she rapped her metal desk with her hand. “Everyone! I know this is boring so we are moving onto another topic!” she said, slapping her poor desk while everyone in the room snapped back into reality. “We will discuss how humans will change the situations we are in right now!” Santos, the nerd of the class was the first to poke the silence. “I don’t think we can do anything really according to the damage we have done and research shows that—” “I agree with Santos! This is why we all hate history class! It’s because we all want to go back to that time where there were things called trees and breathable air! We gotta be thankful for how long we have lasted without the Earth dying completely, but we will die soon!” all of my classmates seem to agree with me. “No, you are wrong, children! We will survive!! Just believe in it!” Ms. Trevelyan corrected us. Soon, we made history class into a debate. We split into two groups on each side of the classroom while Ms. Trevelyan was doing her best job to calm us down but it was as useless as letting a cow learn how to play the piano. “We can’t change the environment!” I shouted, as the captain of my team. “Yes, we can! Even Ms. Trevelyan said so!” said the Marjorie, the captain of the other team. Perhaps only Santos noticed Ms. Trevelyan’s face. Her face turned as red as a ripe apple! She seems to have steam coming out of her ears. “Guys! Calm down!” Santos bellowed. But no one heard him. We still kept sending crossed words across the imaginary ocean. “Who cares about what she says! She’s an idiot!” I shrieked. Oh wait— maybe that was too loud. The room suddenly halted to a stop. It was like I can even hear a needle falling to the ground. I can feel everyone’s eyes located on my face and Ms. Trevelyan’s eyes burning on my colour-drained cheeks. You know, saying one word that is offensive these days in school can make you stand in the corner of the classroom for the day or even be sending home a note about your behaviour! I felt my face burn like fire roasting wood and can also felt my self-esteem drop into a dark abyss. “Excuse me, Ms. Cohen?!” she scowled at me, eyes wider than a tarsier (I