SEARTH

Day 3650 of SEARTH

I’ve done everything to accomplish simply staying alive. But I feel like I’m done. I’m alive, but am I living? I’ve been so busy staying alive and helping other “Leftovers” survive. So busy, being a human who refuses to melt. Up until today I never questioned being a leftover. I fancied myself a tad stale and tough, but well seasoned and still useful. I've saved my share of lives. Useful. But today or yesterday, I lost my hearts. And that may be the cherry on top of this melted shit sundae we’ve been calling, survival. My own personal dealbreaker. I'm unsure if I still care to be useful.

The heat is unbearably bearable. We knew it was coming. Warning after warning. We knew. Reminds me of Superman’s dad when he tried to tell the old, set in their way, know-it-alls, the planet was about to blow. How does one prepare for something they’ve never experienced? Brace yourself I guess. Hold on tight to loved ones. Tight. Never let go. But that only works in theory. Loved ones can slip from your grip and disappear without a trace. And then you're left with pain or denial, or both.

Gratefully Cool Earth didn’t explode. But it transformed, I feel like we need to create a more severe word for “heat”. Something like, “Healt”. Heat and hell combined, maybe. The heat waves come like a fire tsunami. Would I rather deal with violent waves of water or violent waves of flaming air? I ask myself this question forty times a day. Because, what I wouldn’t give for a dip in the ocean. Ah, the ocean. What’s left of it is out there somewhere. I used to have hope of finding it. If we live right for a certain amount of years, the planet will begin to regulate and recover and we can venture more than a mile out, when above ground someday. But how much longer?

I remember saying “ I should print these photos.” Now, they are stuck in what future generations (if there is any future) will call little cancer boxes. Phones and computers are useless in this level of heat and the sun keeps sending extra hellish solar flares. Just in case we thought we could get a power grid up and running. It's all about power. We abused it on all levels and it was taken away from us. Cars. A car with air conditioning. I miss that luxury every single day. But they should be gone. The tax on that luxury was too high. I wonder if cars never existed, would life on or in earth, be different.

It’s like the earth (and the sun) wanted to save us and kill us all in one. You wonder how a human can survive metal melting waves of heat. Humans are meant for survival. Sadly, not all humans. My locket, my two little hearts. I kept it around my neck. But tucked in for fear it might fall off in a desperate moment. In moments of coolness, I’d take it out. Stare at it, hug it, live through it and in it. I’d thank God I wasn’t cheap and went for twenty-four karat gold instead of some plated nonsense. The heat would’ve turned it green and ruined the two photos I have left in the world.

Had we printed and stored photos in metal boxes, we’d still have some photos. But who did that? Who listened? I wish I had printed the tens of thousands of photos of my twins. I wish we could breathe and run and play above ground like before. A park. There were so many. I would sit in the park with my babies for hours and hours. Friends would wonder how I could stand being in a park that long. It was my joy. Hours at the park or hours at the beach. I wish I had printed a photo of the ocean. I’d stare at it for a century. So many wishes. So many things I wish I had done differently. So many things I wish we as a collective of humans without an alternate planet to flee to after we helped destroy this one..had done differently. These dark tunnels have darkened my soul. We’ve taken to living in sync with the earth as opposed to fighting her. And so she has loosened the death grip she has on us Leftovers. But how much longer? What will a healed Searth really be like? We can drop the S, go back to just plain old, solid Earth. Will we ever be able to live above ground again?

I used to say, “If an apocalyptic anything happens, I want whatever it is to land right on me. I don’t want to figure out how to live through unimaginable adversity”. Turns out, this animal, is all about survival. Drinking pee, growing veggies in human poop, dining on super-sized protein rich cockroaches, digging and digging to create a whole underground world. The good life. But, survival is key. Always has been, always will be. In the Cool Earth times, when Zombie movies were the rage, we watched humans push through the nastiest of horrors and we’d think, no way. Just let me die or turn. Solidarity in numbers. The Zombies have one goal. And they stay winning. Let me just join the winning team. And now here I am faced with deadly heat waves, an uninhabitable surface and radiation deformed creatures that I have to eat, because….survival.

My twins, would be (are) eleven years old. When I let myself hope, I believe they are alive. On some other part of this damn near molten earth. They live near a river with a waterfall. Or near whatever’s left of the ocean I loved so. Some off the grid, wonderful human has taken them in. Cared for them. They have a farm, with cows and goats and pigs and acres of avocado trees. Green gold, is what I used to call avocados. I’d trade my pinky toe for an avocado right now. I’d be willing to part with both pinky toes for some guacamole. Don’t even need anything to dip in it. I’ll suck that green goodness right of my fingers or remaining toes. In the Cool Earth times we’d burn through avocados. Twelve or fifteen a week. It’s the first food my twins ever ate. They loved it. This stranger has avocado trees. He or She has taught my twins how to grow them. .

I’ve survived burning oceans, dehydration, melting, molten everything, sufocating surface air, etc. Now I sit here, ready to end my life, because I can’t find a simple locket. A simple stupid locket, some might say. But it’s my lifeline. My gateway to my own personal heaven. I don’t know where it fell off, how it fell off, but it’s gone. It’s somewhere out there trying to survive deadly waves of heat. Like my babies. Somewhere out there. I have to believe, trying to survive this hell on earth. I feel like I’m done. What’s after earth? It’s gotta be better than this. Maybe this entry will find my twins, and they will know their mother’s last thoughts. I am with them. Always.

Day 3651 of SEARTH.

The quest to survive is busy. So I would never journal two days in a row, but if my babies were to ever find this journal I want them to know, Mommy pressed on in their honor. What a difference a day and a found locket makes. I’m still here. And will remain. My will to live burns on. Burn, being an intentional use of this hellish heated world. A small child, who wanders and I have saved many times, returned my hearts. In the past, I refused to call her by name, because this life on Searth, is ever fleeting. She was "child" or "little explorer". Today I spoke her name. She is my savior. I don’t know about tomorrow, none of us do. But this day, I have been handed the will to go on by a small child, who isn’t even my own. I will go on for her. Maybe we can undo the damage and this little one will know of running in the sand, cold waves crashing on her toes, a cool breeze on her face. And well, just living above ground and all the joys and avocados that go along with it.