Northeast to Eden

It hadn’t rained in seventeen years and the earth grew hotter every day. There was no respite from the dust and the wind except for inside abandoned homes and office buildings—a dilapidated theme park of a past reality. In place of ocean tides on sandy beaches, waves of death and destruction crashed upon the remaining living souls daily. Some wondered if there was any point in continuing to survive, for living was a luxury of the past. Others, however, sought salvation.

Eden, they called it, existed beyond the current confines of the desert landscape. Some place where life still bloomed, water fell, and one could drink forever. This place, the collective hope of all humans that were left on earth, was not to be sought lightly.

Jane had started on this journey—alone—five years ago, after everyone she loved was taken from her. She was one of the few who had known of it even before The Drought. Her mother had imparted this wisdom to her, when, as a small girl, she noticed a marking on her mother’s inner wrist.

“I am not sure you are old enough to understand,” Jane’s mother told her.

“Of course I am! You told me just this morning that I was a big girl and big girl’s help with the gardening. And then you made me help you with the gardening and then I fell into the compost bin and then you made me take a shower. Remember?!” Jane smiled at her mother through eyes of love and admiration. She blinked twice for full effect.

“Oh, alright,” her mother laughing, said, “come here.”

Jane’s mother tugged on her sleeve to expose her wrist where a figure of two triangles, touching at their points, was drawn carefully. Jane’s face contorted in confusion.

“It’s a symbol for the future, for hope… for life,” her mother explained, as Jane looked at her through furrowed brows.

“One day, there may not be any garden to tend to, nor any water with which to shower ourselves. And as we move ever closer to that reality, we must also search for a second chance—not for us, but for nature.” Jane’s mother looked at her daughter deeply, to ensure understanding, “There exists a place, a sanctuary to enable this second chance. A place that will revive the sick and feed the hungry, a place where all can drink and share in the abundance of the earth. Somewhere that may be the last hope of survival on this planet if we never see the rain again. It is called Eden.”

“Eden?”

“Yes, Eden. And it is the answer to the destruction of the earth.”

“Well then we must find it!” Jane said excitedly.

Jane’s mother nodded her head as she took Jane’s face and kissed her forehead.

“It is a place that must be found, must be discovered. I have spent my life trying to locate it before The Drought came, but I fear I have been unsuccessful.”

“Well why is it so hard to find? I can help you look for it! I’m really good at hide and seek,” Jane said, smiling.

“You will help me look for it, and you must promise never to stop until you do.”

“I’ll start looking right now!” Jane said as she moved through the room to look outside the windows.

“If you’re going to look for it, you will need this,” her mother said, grabbing Jane’s hair in her hands and moving it to one side so she could clasp a necklace around her neck, “It holds the secret to Eden.”

Jane took the heart shaped locket that hung off the necklace and held it to her ear, “I don’t hear anything.”

Her mother chucked at her daughter’s innocence, “You will understand it in due time, my love.” Jane’s mother embraced her--she hugged her tightly, as if it were the last hug she would ever give.

Jane sobbed herself awake clutching the locket her mother had given her all those years ago. She sat up, covered in a blanket she had swiped from the last abandoned house from which she was able to pillage, and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She thumbed the locket to soothe her broken heart—the same two-triangle symbol that marked her mother’s wrist was embedded into its face. She brought it up to her lips and kissed it, just had her mother had kissed her forehead in her dream—in her reality—so many years ago. She wiped the tears from her eyes and looked through the large glass office walls of her temporary bedroom, in what used to be a high-powered law firm. She saw her comrades sleeping soundly. They had been crashing in the building for less than a week, but she knew it was time they moved on—staying too long in one place was never good, especially when poachers were always hunting for Defectors. Turning in one meant clean drinking water for a month. Turning in thirteen, well that was a first-class ticket to Hydration Station. The Watermongers, who had risen to power during the early years of the Drought, labeled all those who refused to conform to their arbitrary laws, “Defectors”. Jane was the leader of the Defectors, well, these ones anyway. She had recruited them two years ago during a late-night brawl when she effectively fought off two Poachers single-handedly. It was her grit that attracted people to her, but it was her search for Eden that made them stay.

“Morning,” a groggy voice came from the door of the office Jane was occupying.

“Oh, hi,” she said, squinting her eyes to see clearly.

“It’s William,” the visitor responded.

“Yeah, I know,” she said, having not fully recovered from her flashback dream.

“I brought you some coffee,” William said, as he stepped into the light. He was tall, scruffy, and dehydrated.

“Thanks,” she said, as she took the cup of instant coffee grounds from him and began eating it like movie popcorn.

“Remember when we used to drink this stuff?” William asked, bringing the cup to his mouth and pretending to drink. Jane laughed.

“Listen,” she began.

“Yeah, I know,” William interrupted, “We gotta move base,” He sighed, “ It’s a shame. The kids were really starting to like it here.” Jane looked through the glass at the “kids” fast asleep and said,

“Their median age is like 38.” It was William’s turn to laugh.

“So where are we going this time?” he asked her. Jane didn’t respond and only kept rubbing the locket around her neck. She took it off and opened it. Inside was a miniature compass pointing northeast.

“Northeast,” she said.

“Northeast?” William asked, looking at the locket and then Jane and then back to the locket, “you sure?”

“You don’t trust me?” She asked him with no humor in her voice.

“You know I do,” he said, and lifted his sleeve to expose a marking of his own: two triangles touching at their points.

“Okay, so we go northeast” she said and got off the mahogany desk she was using as a bed. She grabbed William’s arm before he was able to leave.

“We’re almost there, I can feel it.”

“Okay,” he said.

“I’m serious. I know everyone is feeling impatient, but we just need to hold on a bit longer.”

William moved in close to her and grabbed both her shoulders lightly, “I trust you and so do they. It doesn’t change the world to be against you, only with you. We go northeast.” William patted the side of her head and smiled at her lovingly before leaving the room.

“Alright cadets! Time to wake up! Move, move, move!” he yelled on the other side of the door to Jane’s delight. Her groggy troops flipped him off as they rose from their sleep.

It was dark outside when they left. The cover of darkness added a layer of security in a world where there was virtually none. Even as they wrapped their exposed skin in protective cloth, they could feel the dustiness of the air settle into their clothes and permeate this protective barrier. It was nearly two hours into their trek when Jane opened her locket again and checked her compass.

‘We on track, boss?” William asked her.

“Yeah, I think so,” she said with hesitation. The compass was not acting properly. It seemed to dart back between north and south before spinning uncontrollably.

“William, I… What is happening? Look!” She pulled the chain toward him, the needle whirring fanatically.

“What the hell…”

The whir of helicopter blades filled the air as a thundering voice descended upon them.

“Defectors, drop your weapons and put your hands in the air. Defectors, you are being detained by the police. Surrender without conflict or suffer the consequences.”

Jane and the rest of the group knew there hadn’t been a legitimate police force in a decade. These individuals, the Watermongers, had made themselves judge, jury, police, and dictator over their nonexistent kingdom.

“How did they find us?” William asked, looking at Jane.

“I don’t know,” she said, not taking her eyes off the metal birds. Her heart was thumping loudly in her chest, her mind racing to figure out how to escape their predicament. A man descended from the helicopter on a thick rope.

“Hi, Jane,” he said, a gleam in his eye and hate in his heart.

“How did you find me?” she asked in awe. The man reached towards her neck, as if to choke her but rather grabbed onto her locked and yanked it off of her.

“No!” she screamed, lunging forward. The man backhanded her and sent her to her knees. He stood above her, thumbing the locket as Jane had done earlier.

“Rigged this little sucker last time we were together,” he said, “You really are a deep sleeper.”

As he tugged the rope and ascended back onto the helicopter, two dozen police vehicles, damaged from rust and sun and dust, approached Jane and her disciples. Jane did not move, she only stared at the lost locket, the lost piece of her mother that was now flying above her at great speeds. Even when her wrists felt the cold steel of handcuffs, she continued to look upward. She had experienced loss more times than she could count. But she would never get used to it; she would never feel like any of it was for some greater purpose. It was an injustice in every way, every time.

“No,” she said in the back of a police van with William and her troops. “I won’t accept it this time; I won’t. Every time they take something from us, we persevere, we push through and on to find Eden. Not this time. This time, we destroy them. Destroy everything they are and have and love. We take their resources and promulgate them how we see fit.” She said with a deep breath, “We create our own Eden.”

There was a quiet among them that was palpable. It emitted from the core of each individual into the heart of the next. The drive was the same, but the goal had been altered. William nodded as he spoke this doctrine into existence, “We create our own Eden.”