The Apocalypse of Despair

Hard times make for hard people, My Momma used to say. The year is now 2026. Times are hard. People are losing hope all around me and sinking fast. Despair is tangible, you can wear it like a dense cloak. Not just here in New York City but worldwide. Right now it’s the height of our hot season. Nothing below 90’ every day for the last season. Season - is the wrong term. We don’t use it any more since we no longer have any seasons. Now, it’s just a hot period and a cold period. Six months of each. Global warming got injected with steroids from all of the Billionaires building their own rocket ships and marketing mass trips to space. The toxic garbage they left behind up there and the special fuel they used pissed off Mother Nature, ate away at an already permeable ozone layer and The rest is domino effect history. It's all mankind's fault tho. Never heeding the scientific talking heads warnings. Or the floods, the fires and the droughts. I don’t mind it really, not that I’ve a choice. I love the heat. Yea, it's much more acrid and dustier now but it's all I’ve known for a while. Much like our current way of life you adapt and survive or you die. You die like the myriad of decomposing bodies that used to litter the streets before they were picked up and stacked on Liberty Island. “Give me your tired and poor” she said, butsit’s more like, your dead and decaying. But there’s a chance life is better up in the Canadian woodlands. It’s rumored that some patches of the woods are untouched and a safe haven from the heat. Won’t be say getting there but I have to try. Times are hard and hard times make for hard people, my momma used to say.

My Momma would tell me stories of when I was a toddler and she and my pops would walk to Central Park on many spring mornings for years and have picnics on the great lawn amongst the healthy green grass and healthy trees. The weather was normal then, amiable. She said I would laugh a lot, no, we all would laugh and smile a lot as we shared these happy moments together. Rolling around in the grass and weeds, playing tag, hide & go seek, and burying time capsules with Dad. I recall burying one time capsule in the Brambles next to the enormous bird watching rocks. The grass and trees much like other underbrush I remember are sure to be dead and dried up by now. The thought pulled at the corners of my mouth like marionette strings. I don't smile anymore, nothing much left to smile about. I don't recall the last time I have smiled, but the thought of what lay ahead of me is the hope that I will need to survive.

I don’t remember much of my childhood before the ozone started to disappear. but I do recall that all of this misery started about six years ago. Things were normal then, now all I have to look forward to in this new normal of despair is a token of hope buried in the rotted garden of death. I'm Levi btw, I've been keeping a journal so that I won't forget the memories or the moments. So that no one forgets that this is not how things were or should be. That no matter what propaganda is played over the street corner speakers daily at 7 am and 7 pm, “that all will be ok and return to normal if we pray”. Someone has to be here recording the truth. Pen and paper work better than memories nowadays. The heat makes you forget. The thirst, makes you sweat out the images of loved ones and now I’ve forgotten all of my family. I know they existed, I hold them in my heart but as every day passes their faces get fuzzier and blurrier in my mind's eye. My momma always said, your strength is a reflection of your family. And in order for me to survive this I have to remember my family.

I take a moment and stare at the chipped paint ceiling and wipe a tear from my eye as I sit up in a disheveled bed in the master bedroom of the home I grew up in and I don't recognize any of it anymore. Fragmented bits of sunlight permeate the darkened room illuminating me once again to my current situation. Dreary and forlorn I glance around the disheveled room committing these nostalgic surroundings to memory for one last time. Today was the day. It was no longer tenable to remain here in what was once my family's home. Resources were running low, food and water was becoming scarce and my safety was becoming an issue. Being alone And having to defend my home from looters and other roaming groups of people looking to survive or seeking a sliver of hope during these tough times. I could not continue to defend it. I had prepared for this day for months, knowing that the day would come when I would have to leave New York.

After my nostalgic memorization down memory lane I put on my prepped back pack, breathing apparatus, face covering, boots, jeans, jacket and helmet. I Leave through the broken gate of my broken home and I walk briskly east towards what’s left of Central Park. One quick pit stop before I walk up north to Canada. I locate the bird watching rocks and see the small boulders where my Dad and I buried our last time capsule. I work feverishly for two hours to unearth the location and I finally find it. Our time capsule. I wipe away the dried soil and open the steel box. There beneath the Yankees tickets, news clippings and portable hard drives was a shiny golden locket, which opened to the smiling faces of my mother and father. I stared at it intently, reacquainting myself with their features, their wrinkles, their beauty and I began to sob. I clutch the locket to my chest as I’m trying to replace its station with that of my own heart. I sob for my dear family. I start sobbing for all that I’d lost and forgotten. Sobbing for our planet and those like me that are alone, and have lost the last of their family and living through hard times. This locket, will help me move ahead during the hard times. Hard times make for hard people my momma used to say.