The Orchid

I was too late, or should I say we had all been too late.

As I got to the top of the steep hill I reached for my mask and pulled it to my face. I inhaled the fresh oxygen, feeling the pressure on my lungs gradually begin to ease. I had been saving my oxygen now for weeks in order to make this climb. The South Downs had always been a special place for me, even more so now they were so inaccessible. The air got so much thinner the higher you were, thick with dust, and even though I was only a couple of hundred metres above ground level, I was already struggling to breathe. It had been worth it though, for the simple fact that climbing the hill almost made me feel alive again.

I had played here as a child. Happy days spent wandering the hills, oblivious of the events that were to come. I was so carefree back then. I never thought anything bad would actually happen to us. It was the 22nd century after all. We were so advanced now and nothing could stop us. Well that’s what we had thought, but then the asteroids came.

So here I am alone at the top of this abandoned hill. A place that used to be full of people, full of life, of nature and natural beauty, but all that’s left now is an empty shell. I love the silence but hate the way the scenery has transformed. Warped into something unknown, something that should be alien to this planet.

It happened so quickly. There was nothing we could do. It started with the asteroid strikes. They told us they hadn’t known they were coming but no one really believes that now. After all, what was the point of them creating mass panic when they couldn’t prevent the inevitable. The polar ice caps had already been melting for decades but as the first asteroids hit the earth they finally collapsed, sinking into the sea. The Earth’s atmosphere was transformed as dust from the impact of the asteroids began to cloud the air and the sun began to fade.

Then there were the earthquakes, reported across the whole of Europe, but it still didn’t really frighten me because we were surviving. With everything that was happening, here in the UK we were still going about our day.

That all changed when the aftershocks hit London. I remember it so well. August 15th 2122. I worked in the city and my career was on the rise. The corporation I worked for manufactured air purifiers and our stock was soaring. My job seemed so important to me back then. How little I knew and how naive we all were.

The earthquake struck in Europe with a force of 8.6 on the Richter scale, unheard of for this part of the world. The plate worked its way up through the spine of Italy, and across the top of mainland Europe, causing violent aftershocks as far afield as London. We all thought it was a terrorist attack at first but as the aftershocks struck, moving the ground that was normally so solid from underneath our feet, we realised it was nature itself fighting against us.

The building I worked in fared better than most. I survived relatively unscathed apart from a few cuts and bruises, but thousands of people lost their lives that day.

Next came the Tornados, tearing through the countryside and destroying whole towns and villages. But that wasn’t the worst of it. It wasn’t until the air got so thick with dust and the rain turned brown that the problems really began.

We were lucky in the UK compared to some countries as we hadn’t lost all of our land to the ocean. The waters hadn’t flooded us entirely but it still felt strange, to look across the Downs and see the sea so near to me instead of on the horizon. Brighton was now just another Atlantis, lost forever under the waves. We were all now surviving on a shrinking island that had been transformed beyond recognition by nature’s wrath.

It was with the rising of the sea that I first began to give up hope. I had lost loved ones. My pain and grief were my constant companion. I carried on though, a part of me still believing somehow that there would be a solution and there was still hope for us. How wrong I had been.

My fiancé died just three months ago. He was on an expedition looking for natural resources to help build a future for us all. There had been an earth shudder and the ground beneath him opened up. They told me that he had died instantly, that there had been no pain.

No pain. That was a joke. The pain I felt now was like nothing I had experienced in my whole 28 years of life. I gave up completely, even though I could feel the new life stirring inside of me.

My friends tried to support me. After all, in this new world everyone has lost somebody. I ignored them though. For the last few years I had carried on, a survivor. Now without Finn, my fiancé by my side, I was completely lost. I had no hope left inside of me.

I reached for my phone. No signal as the dust was too thick here, but it was the air app that I wanted to use anyway. The app had been designed to test the air quality and measure how long a person can survive without fresh oxygen. The sensors on the phone worked with the app to analyse the surrounding environment. According to the app I had approximately 45 minutes before I began to lose consciousness, but that was not taking into consideration my current condition. I gave myself 30 minutes. 30 minutes to make up my mind about what the future would hold for me or if indeed there would even be a future for me.

Before Finn had died I had been looking forward to this day for a long time. This is the spot where I had first met Finn exactly six years ago. I had so much potential back then, a future. And although the world changed we still planned our life together. Today was going to be the day that we made the ultimate commitment to each other and to the baby I'm expecting. We were meant to be getting married.

I feel tears filling my eyes. I’m short of breath again and reach for my oxygen mask. Not much O2 left now. If I want to go back down I should save some. But do I want to go back down? Can I really continue to face the world every day? Maybe I should stay up here lost in my memories, waiting for the thin air to finally take me away.

I was terrified when I found out I was pregnant, after all who would want to bring a child into this world? Finn had reassured me though. He had told me everything would be ok.

“How can you know that?” I asked him.

“Summer, it has to be,” he was so confident. “Technology is advancing so quickly. We are learning and adapting to our new environment.”

“But still…”

“Listen to me,” he interrupted my protests and held me tightly in his arms. “We now have earthquake resistant building materials, oxygen is being pumped into our homes to give us fresh air, wind technology is providing our energy, water purification systems are gradually cleaning our seas and we are growing plants, fruits and vegetables in Eden projects across the UK.”

The Eden project, once a popular tourist attraction in Cornwall, was now essential to human survival. Similar projects had been created across the whole of Britain. Botanists grow plants inside the bio domes and then transplant them outside to help clean the air and generate new growth. So far all the replants have died, unable to survive in the dust that surrounds us. Only the sturdiest of trees and grasses still grow outside. Flowers, vegetables and fruits can only be produced inside the bio domes.

“It’s not going to be easy but we can do it. We can do it together and help the earth become a home again, for us and for our future children.”

“But look around you,” I protested. “The earth is barren. Mother nature has deserted us. She got tired of our stupidity and ran away. How can we make a difference now? All hope is gone.”

“Hope is never gone and one day you will know it. One day you will be out walking and you will see a sign, a miracle even. I’m not sure what, perhaps a flower growing in the wild again, and when you see it you will know Summer. You will know that hope still exists and that there’s still a chance for us all.”

His confidence, his optimism, his pure passion for improving our future, the sheer hope and conviction that he had inside of him, and the belief that he had in not just humanity but in the technology being created to help us survive, made me feel strong. He made me feel brave.

“Here,” he told me before he left for his mission that day. “A locket for you. It’s to remind you of how much I love you and that there is hope for the future.”

Finn touched my swelling stomach gently and my heart fluttered. The heart shaped locket was beautiful. Made from sterling silver, inside was a picture of Finn.

“And there's space for our baby.” Finn pointed to the other side of the locket. “But look at the back.”

I turned the locket over and saw the inscription. “Hope”.

“It’s beautiful!”

“And so are you. Remember Summer. Always have hope.”

I believed him. I believed we could rebuild our future and that we would be fine.

But now he’s gone and I don't have hope anymore. I just don’t know if I can carry on alone.

It was as these dark thoughts ran through my mind as I pressed the locket to my heart, that a flash of bright colour caught my eye in the distance. I couldn’t quite make out what it was so I decided to investigate further, my curiosity raised by the colour, such a striking contrast to the brown dead earth all around me.

And there it was, so familiar but yet so out of place. An orchid, pale purple in shade, once a common sight but now so impossibly rare, so incredible to be growing out here, surviving against all the odds. The simple sight of the orchid, right there in front of me, living despite the conditions of its unnatural environment, suddenly filled my heart with something I hadn’t felt for a long time.

I was dizzy, a combination of shock and joy and lack of oxygen. Because there it was, just as Finn said it would be, a flower growing in the wild. Tears sprang to my eyes and I had to steady myself. I could hear his voice in my head telling me that this was my sign, the miracle I had been waiting for to give me the strength and conviction to carry on.

I knew then what I was going to do. Of course I couldn’t give up. I could never give up. If this single orchid had the strength and determination to survive, then surely I could too. Although it would be hard I had to carry on. I had to give us a chance, a chance to shine in this new dark world and make it better, as Finn had done. I had to help build a future for us all.

I also knew what I would call our child. I would call her Hope.