For the Future

It was closing in fast—behind him, and all around. The fire was everywhere.

“I can make it.”

“I can make it.”

“I can....”

His breath was getting heavier. The air escaped in short gasps.

He didn’t even notice the blood had drained from his white knuckles as they gripped the steering wheel. His hand was raw from the thin silver chain wrapped tightly around his right hand, and the heart-shaped locket hanging loosely with the name Lilly inscribed in a delicate cursive.

He rocked back and forth as if to make the car go faster by the power of his will. The pedal was pinned to the floor. Some part of him believed if he pushed down harder with his foot he might get just a little more speed. A little more and he might make it.

The electric engine whizzed in high pitch frequencies as he swerved to avoid the debris. The car’s neural link flashed an image into his mind's eye of a map showing the access roads ahead. The vehicle was compact but had smooth flat angular surfaces.

The fire had already engulfed both sides of the road which had gotten narrower as he traveled deeper into the mountains. Thousands of sparks streaked and flew off of the windshield with a series of sharp tack, tack, tack, tack sounds. Under any other circumstances, it might have been beautiful.

His mind raced.

The chassis passed through bursts of flames. The smoke was thick like a London fog and glowed red against the black backdrop. Silhouettes of what was left of thin jagged black tree trunks divided the skyline. Bright patches of yellow, white, and red embers, like a campfire after the logs, break down into hot smoldering coals, extended in every direction.

It was moving so fast.

When the rains stopped and the freshwater sources disappeared, the trees became dry and brittle—little more than kindling.

The dryness in his throat had been there for so long he didn’t notice it like he used to in the earlier days. It was so hot, but the sweat had stopped dripping from his brow for what might have been 20 minutes. It was nice to not have to wipe the salty moisture from his eyes, but this was probably not a good sign.

For some reason his thoughts drifted back to his childhood, swimming in the lake by his grandparents' house. Maybe this was some kind of psychological defense to shield him from the soul-crushing inevitably of his current circumstance.

He remembered the old family cabin.

There were still fish back then in 2045, but the populations didn’t last long. The last time he ate a fish his brother had caught a trout in the lake. There was an elaborate set-up of multiple fishing poles with bells attached. He loved fishing but it had gotten so difficult to hook something that it wasn’t worth it to sit out there alone. Dad cooked the trout in tin foil with lemon and some rosemary from the garden.

Periodically a loud thud of something striking the undercarriage would bring him back to the moment.

“We didn’t know how good we had it back then,” he thought to himself, even though the thoughts were barely audible. These visions were like computing tasks running in the background of his subconscious.

Not long after the fish disappeared from the oceans, lakes and rivers, the governments mandated food rations. People did not handle this well. Then the water rations began. The water uprisings that followed were the bloodiest the country had seen.

For a moment the man noticed how curious it was that he was clinging to life. It had been so long since he had known anything like joy. But there was something primal driving him—the purest instinct.

“I can make it.”

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon.”

He stared at the locket in his right hand. The latch was broken so it opened easily producing a holographic image. He looked at the image of the girl with sad, tired eyes staring back at him. She was about 9 years old with a fair complexion and auburn hair. She had freckles, but looked too old for her age. The image flickered, illuminating the dried blood on his hands and the smooth silver talisman.

“I can make it.”

Them that broke the world had made great fortresses. Some thought they could store up enough to last forever, so their kids and grandkids could rule over the ashes. They didn’t really give a fuck about their kin. They knew. They all knew what was comin’ back then...what was waitin’ for their own children. To keep the money flowing they tricked people into thinking it was all a hoax.

Eventually, as the weather became more extreme, the fat cats hired small armies to protect them from the hordes. It didn’t go well for them in the end though. At a certain point the guys with the guns realized they didn’t need to take no orders, cause they had the guns.

When the poors invaded the Hamptons, there was minimal support from the military because most of the soldiers were abroad fighting the second water war. Sovereign nations and corporations scrambled to loot fresh water supplies like it was black Friday. At that point the lines that divided companies and countries had all but disappeared.

In the end, it was a mad scramble for the water. Water is life.

The heat started to singe his skin. His throat burned with every breath.

If he could just make it out of this and to the West Coast. He had heard some people were surviving near the beaches in Wyoming. California, Nevada, and Oregon had long since succumbed to the rising Pacific. Once bustling cities were now great expanses of watery concrete graveyards below.

A billion people were displaced when the coasts started disappearing around 2060. It all escalated much faster than anyone was prepared for.

He could still see it all play out in his mind. The memories kept coming. He hadn’t slept in a long time.

“Focus. Focus. Don’t do it for yourself, idiot.”

He tried to stay concentrated on the task at hand as the sparks continued to rain down like a shower of thousands of tiny comets. All of these memories came rushing to his mind like a tsunami. The mind is a strange and curious thing. Maybe this is what they are talking about when they say your life flashes before you when you are about to die.

Maybe it was just to avoid seeing the face of the little girl who had no one else coming to save her.

As the thoughts drifted again he wondered what it would be like in space at that moment. Some of the trillionaires and billionaires managed to get off the planet to a few terraformed space stations. They surrendered their entire fortunes to buy their way out of Armageddon. Turns out this was their exit strategy the whole time. What if they had all just committed their resources to solving the problem together— when there was still time left to do something about it? It might have given everyone a chance if they at the very least hadn’t worked so hard to keep the lie going that everything was fine. There wasn’t no apocalypse comin’.

“God, just let me do one good thing” the man muttered his cracked and blistered lips stinging from the effort

All of a sudden a tree fell in front of the car with a loud crash sending an explosion of sparks everywhere.

“AAAHHH NOOO!!!!! The noise came from the most guttural and primal place within him, but barely audible as a raspy whisper.

It was over.

He knew it.

The heat intensified quickly, like a blast furnace.

He stared down at the flickering image.

“I’m really sorry kid.”

He sobbed gently trying to get the words out. His voice was faint and surrendered.

“Your mom told me she had to get to you...to get you out in time. She begged me. I’m sorry I didn’t make it. I’m sorry I took the car from her. I never meant to hurt her. I...I....needed the car. There wasn’t no other way. I was gonna find you I swear. To do one good thing.. She gave me the address before she was gone. She begged me. I suppose it don’t matter now.”

His eyes fell shamefully downward.

“I’m not a bad man.”

He took small gasps of air, but felt like he was suffocating. The heat was unbearable at this point. The images of everything around him began to waver as the heat distorted the atmosphere like a house of mirrors.

He figured that he must be in a delirium because looking out of the window there appeared to be apparations standing around him. They moved closer through the inferno toward the car, completely unaffected by the flames. They said nothing, they just stared intently.

Their eyes betrayed nothing like empathy for what was happening.

In the last moments, he could make out their buckskin clothes, long black hair, and dark complexions. One had what looked like a white handprint painted on his face. He subtly nodded as if getting closure, but without the satisfaction. They were specters from the past who came to bear witness to the fulfillment of the prophecies. This was once their land but they were no longer of this place.

They had tried to send messages through their living progeny, in ceremonies and visions at the edge of death. They tried to save the people, to warn them to change their way even despite the centuries of suffering visited upon indigenous people. Their words fell on deaf ears.

The colonizers on earth were all but gone now and their souls could soon finally rest.

What a waste of a beautiful world.

*****************************************

At that same moment 200 miles directly above, two hovers figures pressed their faces up to the cool glass window to get a glimpse of the rotating earth. Below the space station, hundreds of thousands of miles of land were ablaze, but from that height the great walls of flame looked like single sheets of burning black paper, as the orange incandescent glow dissolved the edges.

“Is it time yet, my love?” A young woman said to her companion, who was much much older. Her medium-length blonde hair moved as if underwater. They wore orange jumpsuits with Tesla X patches on their left breast.

“Now’s as good a time as any, my dear.” The old man produced a dark green bottle of champagne that read Sir Winston Churchill 1999 on the side. As it “popped,” she let out a little playful shriek. He tried to contain the explosion of the cork but the frothy bubbles floated in mid-air.

“I’m afraid we must drink from the bottle like savages,” he said.

She giggled as she captured the champagne bubbles floating near her.

They both stared out of the circular window. The black and orange earth was rotating so fast below them. It was all on fire.

“What do you think it is like down there?” she asked.

“Best not to think about it my love. Let’s drink to life. It goes on. To the future. Happy New Year!”

They thought the future was in front of them. They thought they were free, but there is no escape from the wheel of time. The spirits of karma are patient and eventually devour all.