Katie McKittrick

Left Behind

As the fifth drone flew over our house in the past five minutes and left my line of sight, I knew we were in the clear. I gave off a loud whistle to signal Ollie that we were safe and then I carefully slid myself along the attic’s floor to avoid the low-hanging ceiling. I also knew I shouldn’t make any sudden movements that might cause me to come crashing through the roof. The house we were squatting in tonight was made in the late twentieth century due to the pictures hanging on the walls throughout the house as well as the layer of mold and dust that covered the floors and furniture. Ollie despised the people who lived during this time in history because he blames them for how the world ended up. War, famine, and climate change definitely turned our world upside down and he believes the people to blame are the same people who owned houses like the one we are in tonight. I don’t follow that same mindset. Sure these people should have made better judgment calls when they started seeing the early signs of climate change. They should have bought cars that weren’t so demanding in fuel. They should have saved the precious freshwater they had such easy access to instead of drowning their lawns in it. They should have eaten less meat and sprayed fewer chemicals into the world. But, honestly, I don’t blame them as much as Ollie does. They were just clueless. My mother always told me “ignorance is bliss” when she would explain how the earth became how it is today. It took me a while to understand exactly what she meant by that, but I have learned the meaning from firsthand experience now that Ollie and I have lived on our own the past few years.