Homeward Bound

If there was ever a place my soul would zoom to after life, it would be this place. The soft buzz of summer, faded stripes on the highway winding up the hill, green grass hugging the edges of the cement. Sweet pea blooms tangling and unfolding from underneath barbed wire. Large lazy meadows graced with sun that race up into the high cliffs studded with redwoods. Mountains and mountains that disappear into the golden afternoon haze.

As I wake, there’s the inescapable, frightening gasp for air, much like the moment you realize you will die someday. That sudden deafening awareness in the base of your skull.

The worst dreams are the good ones, the ones that are so hard to wake up from. I hated this recurring dream; it was of a place I had never been but felt like I had known all my life.

I remember seeing it in old pictures, and videos from decades ago, but I wish I could have seen it in person. Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like to be born pre-millennium. When I was in fourth grade, we had to do a project after the last pre-millennium person died. As time has gone on, much of the digital archives of that time have been destroyed.

Days, hours, minutes, they’re meaningless. Parched grey-orange skies make it impossible to tell time anymore. It’s only ever slightly dark and slightly light.

It’s weird to wonder of a better time when you live in a worse one.

My computer suddenly dings. Jeremiah is calling. I touch the screen lightly and his face lights up across the screen.

“Hey,” He starts.

“Hi.” I murmur.

“I finished the budgetary analysis module”.

Ah yes, I was completing a fiscal analysis of just how fucked our corporation is in the coming four years. We are in a major deficit, and it is quite dismal when put into numbers.

“Great.” I glanced back down at the papers underneath my fingertips and tried not to meet his gaze.

“....Do you have the ‘99 - ‘102 totals done?” I tore a corner of the piece of paper and rolled it slowly between my fingers.

“Haze, we’re going to be struggling soon if you don’t do your part”. His voice was a whisper.

I kept rolling and twisting, and dared not break my zoned glare from the edge of the table. I rolled the paper into a firm circle and kept twisting into a circular shape.

“Hazel,” Jeremiah said firmly. I glanced up.

“Any particular reason you made a noose?”

My mind was somewhere nestled in the soft scent of the sweet pea blossoms, glazed in a honey sunset in the mountains of my dreams. I had a shredded paper noose knotted tightly around my index finger. The sky outside was a nauseating green-orange.

“Do you ever wonder if anyone gave a shit?” I blurted.

My voice was much louder than I expected.

“...What?” He was genuinely confused.

“Did anyone give a shit. Like, seriously. I’m here, you’re here, we’re here, but left with nothing. We’re left with this psychotic shit show of a studded rock spinning around a glaring fucking ball of fire. Not a goddamned tree or fucking flower left. Nature is gone, most animals are gone, natural grown food is gone, did anyone ever GIVE A FUCK about what they were leaving us?!”

My voice carried across the office space and down into the hallway. I wasn’t sure why I suddenly decided to erupt the way I did, but it had been on my mind, chewing at the back of my throat. Who the fuck allowed this to happen? Now, here I was, mostly trapped indoors for the rest of my life because outside was nothing. We couldn’t enjoy anything that had existed naturally just a century ago. How had someone effed it up this bad?

“Hazel.” Jeremiah’s voice suddenly rang through my red eyes.

“Have you been injecting?” No, but it was time to start. Why drink alcohol and consume calories when you can just inject the toxin and get drunk within minutes?

“No.” I responded. I looked up and his eyes met mine for the first time since he called. He had a sullen, concerned look.

“I’m sorry.” I said. “I'm just get swallowed up in my thoughts nowadays.” He offered a somber half smile.

“I know. Get some sleep and we can chat tomorrow, ok?”

“Sure.” I replied. I glanced down at the defeated paper noose on the desk.

“I’m worried about you.” He whispered, before ending the call. I breathed a sigh of despair and shut down my processor for the night. As the glow from my windows faded, the sky lit the room with a dismal color. It must be sometime around sunset, as the other skyscrapers were lit with a dull glow as well. I wasn’t sure what it was like to stare out the window and not see brass, reflective plates and other buildings. What would it be like to see trees? The moon? I wish I had been alive to see the moon when it was still in the sky.

As I walked from my office into my bedroom, the artificial light faded areas I left and illuminated areas I was in. I padded to the control panel and set it to “Vitamin D Plus” for the morning. Because we couldn’t go outside, we had to rely on artificial lighting to help us source vitamin D.

The cold apartment suddenly felt like too much, with me and all my big thoughts. I wasn’t sure I was ready for them all by myself. The cabinet across from my sleeping pad was looking extra appealing tonight.

I opened the door and grabbed a double, stretching the IV lovingly. I fell across my pad and knotted a tourniquet on my right arm. Sweet relief - who knew. Within moments, my eyelids dropped and my body began to relax. I felt my stiffened neck ease up, and my jaw unclenched. Slowly, I faded into the only place I wanted to be that night.

An icy blue lake sat nestled far below the cliff I was standing on. The air was sharp upon inhale; full of decadent scents of nature. Crisp pine, fresh snow, and a few early blossoms. I think they called this springtime.

I glanced out across the gaping wilderness and saw a tall peak far off in the distance. It sat shrouded in a thin veil of clouds. Below me, the lake mirrored the mountainside with precise accuracy. There wasn’t a breeze to be found, and if one didn’t know any better, you would think it was a large still mirror, instead of a body of water.

“Hazy.”

A female’s voice whom I did not recognize called out from behind me. Startled, I swirled around and faced her. My hiking boots crushed loudly on the rock.

A tall, tan woman with velvet black hair stood in front of me. She looked to be my age, in her early thirties. She was clothed in a shiny, orange silk cape and dress, something out of a movie. Her eyes were an almost glowing green and brown, that stood out from her olive complexion. The hood held most of her hair back, but the rest snaked around her thin waist. Across her waist were black, tribal tattoos that pointed downwards like tiger stripes. She perched barefoot on the rock, unbothered by it’s rugged sharpness.

“Who are you?” I asked sharply. She smirked at the concern on my face.

“You asked why no one did anything.” She said assuredly.

“Huh?”

“You asked why no one did anything to save this place.” She repeated. My face softened.

“Yeah.” I nodded.

“The fact is, we did try. We just didn’t have enough time, or enough people who cared.” She said. “Too many irreversible things were happening too fast.” Her gaze softened a bit.

She held out her fist to me, her spackled gold bracelets clacking softly. I put my hand out instinctively.

Slowly, she dropped a golden, heart shaped locket into my hand. It glimmered in the sunshine.

“It’s all that’s left.” She said. Its small chain fell in a heap in the small of my palm.

“What’s all that’s left?” I asked, confused. I turned the locket over with my fingers.

“Gentle”, she prodded. “It’s all that’s left I can give you right now.”

I slowly unlatched the closure. The two halves fell open to reveal a small, curled creature in the center. It had fuzzy hair and an odd striped pattern, with large black eyes.

“....Is this a bee?” I asked slowly.

She nodded intuitively.

It twitched it’s antennae ever so slightly, and I gasped out loud.

“It’s alive?!” I looked up at the mystery woman.

She gazed into my eyes and her lips curled into a knowing, eternal smile. It reminded me of my egg donor.

She walked towards me slowly.

“It’s all that’s left.” She came closer to me, and before I could realize what was happening, firmly pushed me off the cliff.

As my earthly body shattered across the bottom of the mountain, I came screaming out of my dream like a whale bursting out of the water. Choking, I sat up and gagged. Something was in my throat. I kept coughing, saliva spewing from my lips.

Come on Haze, you have always been able to handle a double!

Finally, I threw up onto the floor, the light pink fluorescent alcohol flying everywhere. But that’s not what I was concerned about.

A small, golden locket sat shimmering in my pool of bile on the floor.

“What. The. Fuck.”