EONE

Late again, I can’t believe that I’m running out of time! Rebekah looked at her smart phone and peered icily at the time. It was a smothering kind of heat, the kind that you could coat yourself in, and keep yourself warm through winter. Rebekah's phone had an alert flashing that the heat was going to be a code for a state of emergency. Lately, fires have been starting everywhere because of the drought and the terrible heat index. The whole west coast was gone. It was like seeing a recent sunburn and instead of flesh flaking off after healing it was pieces of the United States disintegrating into the ocean. What is happening to this planet, cried Rebekah!? Where are we going to live? Soon there will be no food left. I suppose it didn’t matter that she would be late for work, it’s better than not showing up because of being dead. She sometimes had a morbid sense of reality and the fact that she was an ecologist didn’t help matters much, she knew how this would all end. It’s the price of having a well-functioning curious brain.

When she headed down the stairs of the unit, she got a queasy feeling that her stomach wasn’t going to cooperate today. It had become a regular issue since all the stress had started, and she had tried everything, but her brain and her emotions had become conjoined twins who wanted different things but were sharing the same body. Entering the great outdoors wasn’t so great anymore and Rebekah could smell smoke in the air. You could blow your nose these days and the tissue would be covered in black. What Rebekah didn’t know was that there was a fire spreading towards her home and it was only two hours away. The news reports encouraged people to opt for an electric car or bike, the days of using gasoline were over. Luckily, Rebekah purchased an electric car years ago and could easily charge it in the sun due to its solar technology. One of the foretelling signs that life was discontinuing rapidly was the state of the trees. The trees in the summer use to be full, vibrant green, and housed various woodland creatures. Today, they were almost black, branches were rotting off, and the foliage was all gone. People had not seen a single woodland creature in about three years. The days of singing birds were gone which meant that insects would consume the earth, but they were gone too. The last few years people had been eating food made in genetic labs and more people began having more ailments. If the spreading fires didn’t consume you the absence of real food was going to get you eventually.

Rebekah fumbled with the key that opened her car because it was so searing hot! Clank! Clink! As the sound of the keys fell to the ground. Keys really shouldn’t leave burn marks as if I touched a hot iron skillet. Rebekah bends over and picks the keys up and gets into the car. Heading down the road, she looks up and sees her heart-shaped locket dangling from the rearview mirror. The locket puts a smile on her face as she thinks of her father. It was an heirloom of his great grandmother who survived the Spanish flu twice! She was spry even into her old age continuing to make a name for herself in the world of organic farming. The locket was a wedding gift from her husband, an architect specializing in tiny homes with ecofriendly commodities. He wanted her to have a keepsake that could be passed down from generation to generation, it was a reminder of their love, and to never give up on your dreams.

These days Rebekah didn’t even know what she wanted anymore. Her dreams were initially to create a sustainable environment for all organisms and to reduce the planets warming. However, there were far too many people, and too many organisms with needs. People, unfortunately, take more than their fair share causing a deficit, and a collapse in the world’s environment. The ability to repair the earths ailments use to be a possibility, but now we’ve probably passed that option. The thought of existing had become depressing for Rebekah and therefore she no longer felt like she had a future.

Turning into the parking lot of The Environmental Organization of New England or EONE, she like the acronym the most because it could be played as E is for everyone. It gave it a positive spin, a mindful intention, a sense of inclusion, and to care for all organisms. Rebekah instantly sees Mister Brooks getting out of his car. Rebekah, slips the heart shaped locket off the review mirror, and quickly fastens it around her neck. It leaves a red mark on her chest. If the world is going to end, I’m going to have my family with me.

She gets out of the car and walks towards her colleague. “Hi, Mister Brooks! I’m so glad that I am not the only one running behind. How are you today and did you manage to….?”

When Rebekah looked at Mister Brooks he was leaning on his car with a weary look in his red rimmed eyes, he glanced up at Rebekah, and began to speak, “We are out of time, the west coast fires are upon us, and we will all be incinerated within the next two hours. I don’t even know why I bothered coming to work Rebekah, maybe to keep my mind busy so I won’t feel much.”

Mister Brooks lost his wife of 37 years, the prior year, due to illness caused by the fake foods. The engineered food didn’t provide enough vitamins for Rita to sustain her body through her old age. It was one of the many issues with engineered food on some people, they couldn’t absorb the manufactured vitamins the same as the real thing. What would happen is their organs began to shut down one by one, and their biggest organ the skin would become cracked, and eventually they would just dry up. Emaciated was the proper term.

“Mister Brooks, why don’t we go in, I have a project I want to share with you. Maybe we can work together and see if it will protect us before the flames are upon us! Anyhow, if it doesn’t work, we will be together, and keep ourselves busy. In the end, you’ll go home to your wife, and I’ll see my parents again too.”

“Okay, Rebekah lets go because time is not on our side, and we cannot buy it. Truthfully, it hasn’t been on our side in a long time.”

As the two enter the building, they go straight into Rebekah's laboratory, and what she is about to show him is a device that creates a force shield, and when turned on the laser is supposed to protect up to 2,000 miles. The hope is that it will protect the rest of what’s left of the United States, and it will cool the planets oceans causing it to repair itself, giving it time to create new growth, like an earth pod. It would be reactive and regenerate all living things.

“I don’t know Rebekah this looks a bit farfetched but everything fantastic seems that way in the beginning. So, let us turn it on and activate the sensor.”

Rebekah moves closer to her laser which looks similar to a giant telescope, opens the skylight, she pushes the activation button, and watches the thin blue light canvas the town. They both stand and watch the screen to see how far the beam will reach. Will it protect what’s left of the United States? It reaches total inclusion!!

“Now, it’s about waiting Mister Brooks. We need to see if it will be a match for this raging fire and by looking at this screen if any damage will be reversed.” It will begin to show small percentages down in this far left corner of what’s occurring in the ocean and on land.

“Why, that’s rather remarkable and you were just telling me the other day that you didn’t feel like you had a path anymore, that everything was depressing and impossible. What gave you such doubt in this project?” replied Mister Brooks

“I don’t know, it just seemed all too bleak, and I had performed several tests with the laser and couldn’t identify whether or not it was creating the shield to canvas the remaining continent. But as we came in just now, I had a thought and tweaked the mainframe of the laser; also known as the amygdala of the CPU and bing, bang, boom; it worked!”

Mister Brooks and Rebekah stood and observed that the force shield was in fact stopping the fire in its tracks, and it would be 24 hours before they could see if 1% of the lasting continent was beginning to heal. The two had hope, and that was something to celebrate in the coming days. There was something to believe in again, a fresh start; a rebirth.

“I may not be joining my wife just yet but when I do, I can tell her the amazing device you built Rebekah! The one that might save the world, reviving living organisms, and continuing the human race.” said Mister Brooks

Rebekah smiled, “It doesn’t look like I’ll be going anywhere either, my parents will just have to wait for me, and I hope wherever they are they can see the positive effect of my life on this earth.” Looking down and delicately holding the heart shaped locket between her index finger and thumb, it was if her parents were there all along celebrating with Rebekah. She knew that in the end death was not final and there was a whole new universe waiting for everyone.