Eloise

Eloise stared out over the fields, lost in thought. The last 24 hours had proven to be unlike anything she had ever experienced before - and that was saying something. She had never lived a boring life.

Born last into a family of six children, she had gone through her share of hard times. Arriving into the world during the Second Great Depression, struggle was all she had ever known. By 4, she was out in the fields, helping to harvest whatever they could in the harsh +39 degree average summer heat. The good years were far outnumbered by the bad, but the one thing that never changed was the love she felt when she was there, side by side with her family, working through whatever conditions were necessary to survive.

Now, present day, September 1, 2166, Eloise stood alone on the veranda of her family's homestead. She had lost not only her parents but her five older siblings from the planet's unforgiving heat. The only thing Eloise had that remained from the pre-apocalyptic era was this farm, and these fields. These resilient fields of gold, the only crop that continued to grow. Whereas most of the world was now covered with dust and ash, this field had grown anew every single summer. She thought of the old Robert Frost poem she learned a lifetime ago from her father. "Nothing Gold Can Stay". At the time it had been nothing more than beautiful words on an old book, but now that short poem was an illusion to the entirety of her life. This golden field - this field of marigolds, gave her hope in a time when hope was as hard to come by as rain.

Eloise stood on her porch, leaned on the railing, and inhaled the sweet smell of the flowers. She drank in their scent, captured their sight to memory, and whispered the names of those she loved on the faint passing breeze one last time. She imagined those words, those names forever engrained in the petals of those flowers, in the dirt of these fields. A reminder to the universe of the home, and the love that once was.

There would be no coming back.

She reluctantly turned around, forced herself back inside the farmhouse. She took in everything with tear filled eyes - the mantle above the fireplace, strewn with the memories of her family. Christmases spent with laughter, birthdays filled with love. She knew she was one of the lucky ones - one of the last survivors of her province, but it still felt wrong to leave the only home she had ever known. "Be brave", she said under her breath as she picked three of her favorite photographs from the mantle. The time had come. She had been found, just yesterday, by the coalition of humans she had heard about, dreamt about, through her radio. She would go to the promised land, the Arctic, and rebuild. The time was now.

She grabbed her small bag of items - nothing personal other than those photographs, and turned the front door handle. 316 days. 316 days she had been alone in this farmhouse of memories, dreaming of this day. She felt the hot blazing sunshine on her face, took a deep breath, and walked down the front porch stairs.

Nothing gold can stay.

Just as promised, there was the cargo van, with the solider she met only yesterday leaning against it.

"Hello, Colonel Stirling", Eloise said as she took his outstretched hand, and climbed into the back of the vehicle.

"Hello Miss...?", he responded with a tip of his hat. That question mark, at the end, exactly as discussed. Her rebirth had arrived. There would be no more Eloise from this exact point forward. It was too dangerous to divulge any details of your past when on the road. Enemies were everywhere.

"Marigold", she answered, conviction in her speech, eyes focused straight ahead. "You may call me Marigold."