The World Has Grown Silent

It’s been 3 years since I’ve last seen my mother. All I have left of her is my great-great grandmother’s gold heart-shaped locket. The one she always told me to wear, but I refused because I saw it as tacky and old. I never thought that now I would hold it so dear and pray that one day I would survive long enough to give it to children of my own.

Since then, the world has grown silent, the water has become scarce, and our access to food is few and far between. My brother and I have survived. We were together when the first earthquake happened. The news said that we would never feel its effects in Oregon all the way from Montana, but this quake was like none we had felt before. After the first quake, it felt like the country began to shake. Chicago, where my parents lived, was in shambles and entire neighborhoods were missing under the rubble. I pray each day hoping my mother did not go to visit and comfort my family that Sunday afternoon.

The world suddenly broke in two. We knew it would eventually come to this. I remember how each summer the temperatures rose and wildfires spread and lives were lost. I remember feeling the quakes wake me once or twice a month. I remember wearing two masks because the smog became too thick for us to breathe. I remember the ocean closing in on the coast of California and the migration of its residents moving to Oregon. But our country did as we always do, ignore the problem until it magically goes away. I guess the earth was finally tired of our ignorance and decided to take matters into its own hands. I only wish that those hands could have sent a warning and let me see my mother's face one last time. She had just started her new life living as a free and newly single woman with so much hope ahead of her and so many dreams waiting to be fulfilled.

Before the power finally died and the internet became obsolete, I tried to email her our location and tell her just how loved she is, or perhaps, was. I can't seem to come to terms with the reality that I may never see her again. There were so many words left unspoken, so much healing to be done, so much freedom to be had, and I don't ever think I’ll come to grips with how much that hurts. Yet, we live on. Two kids from the suburbs of Chicago hiking the woods of Oregon and foraging what food nature allows us to have. We have made a nice home of what is left of the old fire department. We rarely go out for fear that others may follow us back home and take what little we have, but our generosity knows no bounds for those who are sick, weak, or helpless.

The world is now a game of territory. It’s no Hunger Games, but we do have to protect ourselves. Those who were greedy and had everything before, are greedy and have everything now, but their excess dissatisfies them even more because food and shelter are only so valuable to them. They need power, as they always have. But my brother and I have power from our minds. The old library downtown was trashed and ran through, but all the valuable stuff was left behind. We spent our time finding books on climate change, and revolution, and war, and earthquakes, and survival, and we did our best to apply it to our fucked up reality. Try as we might, we really haven't changed much from who we were before. We are still intellectual introverts who play it safe and hope our way to better things. But still, we wish and dream and hope for the day that mother finds us, though we know she’d be better off not living in a world as cruel as ours.