Heat

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. Her father was all she had since her mother had died when she had been only a few days old. She touched the glass with the fingertips on her right hand. She had learned that only yesterday. The glass under her fingers felt warm. She didn't know that glass usually wasn't warm. She turned her tiny head to the right a little, watching the orange light burning. She didn't know what fire was. She didn't know that because of these flames, she wasn't able to ever leave the house. She didn't know that she'd never see the world how it once used to be. That food hadn't always been delivered by drones, and people hadn't always needed to wear special suits when opening the door to get that food. To her, that was just normal.

“It's so hot!” Lina whined. „And little Maya is home all by herself.

“I know”, Jack said. “But what are we supposed to do? The shops can close any minute. We need as many supplies as we can get.”

There were endless seeming lines in front of the supermarket. And when they entered, almost everything was gone. All the noodles, conserves, dried fruit and vegetables. At least Jack found a pack of dried cucumber that had slipped under a shelve. He used to love cucumbers, back when they had been fresh.

“Baby?”, he heard his wife's voice behind him. “Let's go find another store before it's too late.”

“Okay”, Jack sighed. Of course he didn't wanna walk around in the heat any longer, but there was no other choice. They had a baby at home they needed to feed, and they needed food themselves, too. There was this new drone system the government had developed, but Jack didn't exactly trust in that. He wanted to grab as much food himself as he could for as long as it was still possible. So he followed his girlfriend outside and covered his face to protect it from the unbearable heat. She was quick, and he wanted to catch up with her. So he sped up his pace, but before he could reach her, the bush next to her suddenly caught flames.

“Watch out!” he called, but it was too late. The flames reached her dress, and then only within a few seconds, she was eaten up by the fire. Tears welled up in Jacks eyes, but he was too focused on surviving to cry. He couldn't lose his mind. There was his baby girl, that now needed him even more. So he continued his way to the store by himself.

“She grows up so fast!” Lina said, smiling at her husband warmly. Her hand was laying on her belly, and his hand was on top of hers.

“I can't wait to meet her”, he smiled. And it was genuine. Lina knew that. And still, she also knew that he was worried. How couldn't he be? Above the bed, the TV was running.

“The weather outside gets hotter and hotter”, the speaker said. “And we should all wrap our heads around the fact that in a few years or even months, it won't be possible to go outside anymore just like that.”

A tear got stuck in Lina's eye. As a kid, she had loved to play outside. To collect flowers from the meadows and make little wreaths out of them. The fact that her daughter was never gonnasee a flower in real life made her wanna cry immediately. But she needed to stay strong. So she rested her head on Jack's shoulder and turned the TV off. Enough bad news for the day.

“I have to show you something”, Lina said as Jack came home from work.

“All right” he said and grinned, a little amused by her excitement. He couldn't have known what was about to come. They didn't exactly plan on getting pregnant. So when she showed the positive test to him, he couldn't even believe it.

“That's amazing!” he called, hugging his girlfriend tightly. And of course it was, but there also was this uncanny feeling inside him. The feeling that said: “Is this really the right time to get a baby?” The world was heating up so fast these days, and he knew there was a possibility for it to become uninhabitable before the little human being his girlfriend was carrying inside her would grow up. He was worried as hell, but he didn't show it to Lina. This was not the right time. This was the time for him to show her that he would always support her, no matter what. So he hugged her and told her that they would gonna make it, even though he couldn't know that for sure himself.

Nervously, Jack stared at the clock on the wall. She was only two minutes late, but he already freaked out. Already wrecked his brain on what all these other people thought of him, sitting at this table for two by himself like a pathetic loser. But then she entered, and she looked so beautiful!

“Hey there pretty lady”, his mouth said. His brain was shocked about it though. How could he have said something that cheesy? But Lina only laughed, seeming rather charmed than annoyed.

“I'm glad we finally could make this work”, she said and smiled while she opened the menu. Trying to think of anything else than how beautiful she was, Jack opened his menu as well. The steak sounded pretty tempting. He hadn't had something like that in a long time.

“And I take the baked potatoes”, Lina said as the waiter took their orders. Jack lifted an eyebrow at her, obviously surprised by her choice of food. “I'm a vegetarian” she explained.

“Oh okay, may I ask why?”

“For a example because it's really bad for the climate to eat meat”, she said, and Jack laughed automatically. She didn't seem to like that, but still, laughing was definetely better than to show her what he really thought. “Please not another one of those annoying activist chicks who'll judge me every time I'll buy a plastic bottle or I’ll dare to drive anywhere by car.” Of course Jack knew that climate change was a serious problem, but if the world really was about to come to an end soon, it was too late to do something about it now anyways. They couldn't stop it anymore.