Surviving The End

We were not meant to master the change of the tides or defy the heat of the sun. That was our first deadly mistake.

It was not simply one thing that brought about the fall of human civilization, but a culmination of everything we had been warned to care about. Everything happened slowly in the beginning, then all at once. We could have tackled one problem at a time, the virus, the fires, the bees, the rising sea levels, the unabridged output of garbage into the ocean, the deforestation, the infertility crisis, the scarcity fostered by a strictly capitalist society, the decline of mental stability that finally victimized us all. But when the steady growth of everything suddenly accelerated, we were attacked from all sides by our own apathy. Our own inability to change. Our own selfishness and stubbornness brought about our demise, the fall of humanity.

Well, most of humanity.

The only ones spared by humanity's errors and the Earth's efforts to heal itself, were the ones living as close to the seasons of nature as possible. The ones who revered the earth as our home and knew how to survive without wifi and supermarkets. The one's who knew the earth provided everything we need to survive as long as we honored and respected it.

But I was loved by one.

She was sunshine embodied. She had been through so much and yet chose to make love the center of her world, her driving force. Love for others, for the planet, for herself. No wonder she got her masters in soil science and went into sustainable farming. She slowly impacted me and had me making better, more conscious decisions. A step up from reusable grocery bags and hybrid cars. I suddenly decided I would not use anymore single use plastics if I could help it. I would buy, eat drink and wear sustainable. Because more than just myself mattered. and it was the selfish way of operating that humans had adopted that earned us our demise.

No wonder she was still alive, and going to make it. Her entire life had been devoted to preserving the planet and our place on it. She knew how to survive. How to shoot a gun, catch and clean a fish, forage for berries and essentially live off the grid. All the forgotten survival skills of the pioneers.

I wish I had paid closer attention to how she navigated using the stars and identified wild plants while on hikes.

There are many things I wish I paid more attention to, but hindsight, am I right? Especially now that the world as we know it is officially ending. I write this last entry from the basement of my home, the N95 mask I've been wearing for nine days cutting into the bridge of my nose and caked with ash.

I knew she was safe somewhere high up in the mountains, among the trees, away from the cities and the fires alike. I knew she was doing everything she could with what she had, helping everyone she was able. I wish I had joined her on that trip, the one that started two days before The End began. I knew I would perish in this basement, alone, my food and water almost gone, unable to breathe the air outside, unsure of the state of society now. I keep fingering the gold locked at my throat, the only thing of hers I have left.She had given it to me as we said goodbye before he trip.

"Keep it safe for me," she had said after unfastening it from her neck and holding it out to adorn mine. "I don't want to loose it treking through the wilds."

My one comfort is that she is away from it all, as she should be. Any society left after this will come from her and others like her. They will go forth knowing how to work with the earth instead of abusing it. They will have learned from our mistakes and actually know how to correct them. The earth will rid herself of most of us and start fresh. And so will we. She would be one of the survivors. I knew it. I know it.