A Future to Fight For

The world had not become a wasteland. It was something in between, something far stranger. So much life on the brink of death. Vibrant, yet decaying. Surviving and dying.

In many ways, things were as they were before. People laughed, children played, and there were many instances where it appeared as though nothing had changed for fifty years. But, there were also a lot of things that had become far worse. All the problems people had faced had only festered as the elders bickered over solutions and their own petty squabbles. Summers became a migration period as the world grew hotter and hotter. Many of the rich and powerful moved farther North, towards their countries’ borders. Snow became a bedtime story from an age long lost.

The political splintering that had begun as fissures had grown into gaping caverns, and the greedy men who tried to start wars for land got millions killed. The idea of the American family, happy and smiling behind a white picket fence twisted into a dream of secluding one’s family away from others, threatening the unknown with a pitchfork.

Daily life remained normal, other than the threat of extinction that drew closer everyday. Nine-year old Jemima still went to school, holding her little brother’s hand, even if she had to coat his soft skin with buckets of sunscreen every ten minutes to protect from the sun’s rays. They were lucky that the roads were still intact despite the summer’s heat. Many of the roads farther south had melted, rooting cars and bikes to the asphalt.

Maine was hot this time of year, though Jemima’s father told stories of when the ocean had been so cold that he had cried about swimming in it. Their family had been in Maine for generations. Her mom said that was good because it meant they had their own land. A lot of other people who had migrated North to escape the heat weren’t so lucky. They fought over scraps as they cut down forests to make more room for people. But Miss Jacobs said cutting down the trees only made things hotter. So Camden, Maine grew as crowded as a major U.S city, and things only got hotter. Even with the wars from the decades before thinning out the population, things were crowded, and people were uncomfortable. Jemima thought that uncomfortable people were usually angry people.

Climate activists protested outside Jemima’s school. Usually they were kind and would make sure nothing harmed them, but sometimes the police were there, and things got loud. Jemima took Luke a different way when they heard the police cars in the distance. There was another bill coming up, another attempt to save the Earth is what mother had called it. But it would involve giving some power away, and big men never liked to do that. They liked giving money away even less.

It was on the day of what would come to be called “That protest” where things changed, though Jemima was too young to understand how momentous it would be.

Jemima pulled on Luke’s sleeve, urging his little legs to follow her as they crossed to the left, across the street. They would have to find the back entrance to the school, and walk on all the sidestreets around the school to do it, so that they went in a big circle a street away from the protests. It would probably make them late for school, but better late than letting anything happen to Luke. He was still so small, and even though her dad said she was small too, she thought it was her job to protect him.

The sirens were extra loud today, and Jemima covered Luke’s ears with her hands, so that he didn’t start to cry. “It’s all right.” She said in the same cooing voice their mom used before bed. “There’s more of them than last time. That’s why they’re so loud.” Of course, she didn’t know if that was true, but it felt true, like something a grown-up might say.

Luke didn’t say anything, but his bottom lip quivered and he covered her hands with his own.

“You’re so brave.” She told him because she believed it, and his little chest puffed out in response. He would try his hardest not to cry. He always did. “We’re almost there.” She assured him even if it wasn’t quite true. They still had to walk down this street and another. Their dad had walked it with her many times so that she knew the route with her eyes closed.

A street over, voices were mangled in the sound of bullhorns. They yelled about greed and wealth and fires and hurricanes. Jemima didn’t understand all of it. One time she asked her teacher, Miss Jacobs, about them. She asked if they were the good guys because some angry man on the TV had said that they were all just scared and wimpy. But Miss Jacobs got really flustered by the question. She said that some people really want to take care of the Earth. Then she didn’t say anything else, and Jemima got worried that she upset her, but Miss Jacobs promised she hadn’t. Jemima’s dad later told her that Miss Jacobs probably isn’t allowed to talk much about her opinions in school, and that’s why she got nervous. He said that there are no sides, that everyone is human at the end of the day and lives on Earth.

They’d stopped watching the news soon after that. Sometimes Jemima’s dad still watched it, but only when her mom wasn’t looking. She said that there’s so many good people in the world, but the bad ones are louder, and we have to stop listening to them. She said they’re trying to make them scared by saying poor people are the ones who we need to be protected from. Jemima thought that was ridiculous. The poor people by the tents usually smiled at her and gave her candy if they had it. They simply didn’t have a home.

It was when Jemima and her little brother turned that next corner that the screaming started. Luke started to whimper when they heard a crashing sound. A car alarm went off. There was a noise that once would have been mistaken for a car backfiring. And then people started to run.

Jemima threw her brother behind her just as he started to cry. Although she was too young to know that there was no way she would be let in the school now–schools having learned how to lockdown at the sound of a gunshot long ago–she knew she couldn’t take her brother towards the sound. In the end, her intentions, her thought process, nor even her instincts mattered because the people who had started running away from the noises and the shouting began to run in their direction.

A wave of people surged towards them. Protests had a tendency to attract hundreds of people, but this one appeared particularly big, and as they all scattered, they came running towards two small children, clutching each other as the little one wailed. Bodies began to pass them at a sprint. Some people pushed others out of the way, bumping into Jemima in the process, and the more she huddled over Luke, the easier it was for people not to see them at all.

It happened so hard that she thought she would get slammed into the ground, but she went into the air instead as strong arms threw her over their shoulder. Jemima reached for Luke, but another person grabbed him, pulling them into their arms and continuing their run.

“We have to protect the kids. Watch out for the kids,” People were yelling. Jemima recognized the person carrying her. It was a man from the tents. One day when she waved to him and he gave her a piece of candy, he had said to call him Billy. He had a daughter around Luke’s age, but they weren’t in the same class.

Other kids, stragglers who had tried to avoid the protests were tossed over shoulders so that they could be led to safety. But the police moved down the other side of the street, trying to block the protesters from leaving. They came on foot with a car following behind to block off the road, and the protesters that had flooded down that street skidded to a stop before them. Moments passed, both sides staring at each other once more. The protectors of yesterday and today facing the champions of tomorrow. At the sight of so many people, scared and angry, trying to protect children that weren’t even theirs, one man exited the police car. He had a different uniform, and walked with an air of authority that the others didn’t have. Luke was still crying, though it was quieter now, and the woman who had scooped him into her arms was trying to soothe him.

The man looked at all the faces, the kids with backpacks still on, and the people who had gotten injured when the commotion started. Then he walked back into his car and signaled for the police to disperse. For weeks it wasn’t clear what had happened, why he’d told the police to retreat. He never made a public statement about it, but it became clear when the news broadcasted that he had joined the next protest at the Capitol what had happened.

It didn’t change anything overnight. But “that protest” became a symbol of hope when it could have been a disaster. It became a symbol that people could come together in the worst of circumstances and that there were still more good people than bad people even if the bad people were louder. But even in silence, the good can unite.