Doomsday Diary

Diary entry, August 26, 2071

Our family is driving back to the, now burned, home that we had to abandon when the wildfire entered and devastated our town. We want to look for anything salvageable in the ashes. As we drive along the “escape “route, by the burned -out cars, with burned bodies in them, and more burned bodies on the roadside, where people had tried to escape on foot when traffic was jammed, I wish I could say that I’m surprised or shocked by this. But how could I be surprised, when this scene is so common?

And, as we drive by the bodies, we know that our neighbors, including a close friend of mine, are among those bodies. We know that because of their last terrified phone call. They didn’t evacuate in time, and the traffic jam blocked their escape.

And it isn’t jut the fires. Heatstroke is the leading cause of death, especially prevalent among elderly, infants, and the ever-increasing homeless population, who don’t have a way to get indoors, out of the heat....and anyone who can’t afford air-conditioning.

You just don’t go outside at all on the hotter days. ... unless you don’t have an “indoors “ to go to.

Well here we are at our neighborhood. Looking at the burned waste around us, it looks like the result of a nuclear holocaust, with no wood building left standing, just charred ruins everywhere, and a few soot blackened bric concrete or stone structures remaining.

Now we’ve found our former house. We were able to identify it from a few durable objects such as sinks, bathtub, etc.

I guess we shouldn’t feel sorry for ourselves, given that this is happening everywhere, all the time.

My parents, grandparents & history books tell that it wasn’t always like this. Fifty years ago, fires like this were a rare exception, instead of a continuous ongoing death-toll state of affairs.

Later we will hear about the estimated death totals, but that won’t include the wild animals killed in the fire, or the domestic pets.

It’s hard for any of us to believe that this was the result of self-indulgent overuse of fuel burning in those days, especially in personal-transportation. People weren’t willing to change their lifestyle. Well guess what, their lifestyle has changed anyway-drastically.

You wouldn’t believe how tired you get of the smell of ashes. They say it isn’t good even to inhale that as we are now.

A few minutes ago I noticed a metallic gleam in the ashes of the house next door to ours. When I went over and picked it up, it was the heart-shaped gold locket, which my friend used to wear. Evidently they left their house in such a hurry that there wasn’t time to put it on. In it are photos of her parents. Now that entire family is dead, burned, somewhere along that “escape-route” roadside.

Her parents had given her that locket on the hopeful day when she graduated from high school.

As I hold the gold heart shaped locket in my hand I have tears welling up inside me. Then I realize that my parents have been calling me back to our own ash-rubble. I put the locket in my bag and return to our property.

I wish that fifty years ago, people had listened to the warnings when it still might have not been too late.

Well now we’re on our way back to the emergency shelter where we and other displaced people are living. I wish I could express hope in today’s diary-entry, but the truth is that there isn’t any hope now. There might have been some fifty years ago, if people could have changed their overuse habits.