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The Sea Wall

Après moi, le deluge

By Louis TPublished 3 years ago Updated 3 years ago 7 min read
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On Saturday, as is my wont, I strolled up to the waterfront and contemplated the end of the world. I walked out of my cold, gray apartment block and set out down Ocean Road. In the distance, I spotted the familiar sight of a giant wall. I have walked this path for many years, but the sight of that tall, gray wall never fails to fill me with sadness. Our greatest achievement. Our greatest tragedy.

As I walked along the road, I saw a large throng of people dancing at what looked like a festival. They looked like they were from one of the sunken islands in the Pacific. I do not know which one. Their bright and colorful costumes were in stark contrast to our dull surroundings. The Pacific Islander communities have grown significantly since I was a boy. After their nations were swallowed by rising seas, our nation offered them sanctuary. For a price: in exchange for allowing the displaced islanders to settle, their governments agreed to cede us their territorial waters, and all the resources located there. The treaty stipulates that a portion of the profits from those resources is spent on initiatives for the benefit of the diaspora, including health, education and cultural preservation. But most of it goes directly into government coffers, or into the bank accounts of oil and mineral barons, whose companies harvest the resources from beneath the ocean floor. The government spent its share of the money on the wall. It is for your benefit too, the government declared, as the islanders massed outside Parliament to claim their inheritance. Now the last remnants of their nations are taken from them ounce by ounce, barrel by barrel.

Before long, I reached the base of the wall. A mass of people waited for a cable car to take them to the top. Beside the cable car is a road and a massive stairway that winds its way to the top of the wall. The stairway is the least popular option, which makes it more popular with me. The walk was long, but one I am accustomed to doing. When I arrived at the top, I walked along the breadth of the wall towards its far edge. I peered over into the dark sea below, watching as the waves crashed ceaselessly against the high stone wall. I retraced my steps to the near side of the wall and gazed upon the city below. From atop the wall I could see everything. The wall is the highest manmade structure in the city. It needed to be: without it, the city would have been submerged long ago. Even the residents of the tallest apartment blocks cannot see the sea from their balconies. The ocean views that lured them to purchase no longer exist. I poured my life savings into buying an apartment by the sea, but once I lost my ocean views, the price of my apartment plummeted, and now I am stuck here wondering what might have been. It was once more common to speak of living above sea level. Now the opposite is true. Now we live in the ocean’s shadow.

The sea wall extends in both directions as far as the eye can see, but it does not go on forever. Our coastline is vast, and the government could not protect it all. There wasn’t enough money in their budget. Those living in less-populated areas were told to relocate or see their homes submerged. In the cities, where there were more votes to be won, the government had no choice but to build a wall to prevent us from being inundated. What use is power when the people you rule are lost beneath the waves?

The wall is more than just a wall. Homes and shops of all kinds are built into, next to and on top of the wall. Near the cable car terminal, the wall is lined with desalination plants, a row of white elephants drinking from a vast ocean. A large freeway, running four lanes in each direction, runs along the top. People go to the top of the wall to have picnics and watch the sunset, or look upon the city from above. Bright neon billboards flash across the length of wall. The wall is more than just a wall: it is also a unique marketing opportunity. The largest shopping mall is located at the wall. They call it the Wall Mall. For the government, the wall meant votes. It was the largest infrastructure project the nation had ever seen. For the first time in living memory, everyone who wanted a job could actually get one. Until the wall was built, and thousands were left with nothing. They now build their shanty towns in the shadow of the wall.

As I walked along the waterfront, I saw a young child. You don’t see as many young children nowadays. Plenty of people have stopped having them. When the end of the world promises to be quick, then people give themselves over to each other with wild abandon. But when it is more drawn out, there are no promises, and people are left to fear the consequences of their actions. My wife wanted a child. I didn’t want one at first, but I loved my wife, so I relented. In the end, we made a deal: if we got to have a child, then I got to name it. When we had a girl, I named her Lalage, after the little girl in The French Lieutenant’s Woman. When she was young, my wife and I called her Little Lala. She was so innocent and carefree, a beacon of light against the approaching storm. We used to take her up to the communal garden and watch her marvel at the flowers without a care in the world. Little Lala. Walking down the garden path with flowers in her hair. La lala lala. As she grew older, the world weighed more heavily upon her. Her smiles faded, and her eyes, once a clear and brilliant blue, dulled into a sea gray. ‘‘Lala is a stupid name,’’ she told us. ‘‘Call me Aggie’’. And so we did.

As I walked along the waterfront, I saw a man in black preaching the end of days. ‘‘We have come to the end,’’ he declared. ‘‘The end has come. Man cannot withstand God, we can only delay Him. But God always wins in the end’’. I have no time for these fanatics. First, they told us not to worry because the sea was not rising. Now that the sea has risen, they tell us we got what we deserve. Or something like that. I stopped going to the temple a long time ago because I grew tired of such nonsense. And because Lala died. After she finished school, she joined the navy, which sent her ship off into the Pacific to guard our newly-acquired territory. But that’s not what got her in the end. Her heart gave out after she returned home, when she was running a marathon atop the wall. As if I needed another reason to hate the wall. But perhaps it was a blessing. Now she will not be here for the end of the world. Thinking of Lala made me conscious of the golden, heart-shaped locket around my neck. I grasped the locket and opened it to look upon her face, her lips locked in a sad smile, captured in the stillness of time. I haven’t taken it off since she died. A golden heart. May this heart keep her better than hers did.

As I walked along the waterfront, I passed the boats whose captains offer tours of Atlantis, the lost civilization, which is how they refer to the sunken neighbourhoods beyond the wall. I had always found the story of Atlantis utterly fascinating. It’s a lot less fascinating when it’s the suburbs you used to visit that are submerged. But apocalypse brings with it understanding as well as doom. Considering the fate of Atlantis in light of our current predicament has helped me to realise the truth: that Atlantis was lost long before the ocean devoured it.

As I walked along the waterfront, I felt like one of the last sane people around. Until I passed an Environment Party rally. The party’s leader addressed the cheering, chanting crowds, lamenting the state of the nation and the state of the world. She is an excellent orator, like a modern-day Cato. And like Cato, she ends every speech, no matter the topic, with a warning: remember Palau, remember Tuvalu, remember Kiribas, remember Dhaka. Here, she is preaching to the converted. In Parliament, where the nation’s leaders gather, her pleas have little impact. We are different, they say. We have stricter standards. Better safeguards. More advanced technology. Greater wealth. God on our side. The right God on our side. It’s their fault for being poor. Each reason further from the surface. Each reason closer to the truth. But the truth is even more damning. Our leaders are old, and they do not care. So what if the wall falls, they think to themselves at banquets, balls and brothels, as long as we’re not around to see it. Après moi, le deluge. The leader of the Environment Party is a climate Cassandra. She sounds the alarm, but our nation’s leaders take no notice. We might as well already be underwater.

Climate
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About the Creator

Louis T

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