A Seed of Hope

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We called it ‘the surge’ because it happened so fast. The potatoes were the first to go. Fast food restaurants floundered without fries and started making all sorts of salted alternatives. The green’s were next, and after that it’s all a blur. Diseased crops disappeared until we were all fighting over who gets to lick the Chewwit wrapper clean.

There were incidents, too. A few people even killed their own family over a bite of food. None of us would say it out loud, but I think we all understood. Most of us were scared we would do the same in their position.

I’m walking through the town centre now. Although we call it that, it’s nothing like a town. We all separated off into little camps after the swarm; herd mentality and all that. I landed in this one because my friend Pete was friends with people who had friends here. He’s dead now and so are his friends.

The town is a load of old buses, sheds and fixtures in a wide inwards facing circle; our backs to the rest of the world. In the middle is a large expanse of dirt. We call it ‘the green’.

I’m passing the clinic. Through the window, a man who isn’t a doctor (but we all call him a doctor because he correctly guessed that someone had dermatitis once) is nodding diligently to a woman holding a plastic doll. Clutched against her bosom, she’s strokes its pink scalp.

Most women are barren now, we think from eating the crops. Plastic can be a surrogate, giving them a taste of the life they could have had. We’re close to the end, so they might as well pretend.

In the clinic’s glass, I catch a glimpse of myself. Patched-up rucksack, jeans brown from caked dirt, and a shirt I’ve had since before the surge that hangs off my frame. It obscures a small, metal locket in the shape of a heart that bounces against my chest as I walk.

At first, a lot of people used to keep mementos like that. Framed photographs, pictures in empty wallets of their loved ones close by them. As time went on, most of us lost our sentimentality. We don’t like thinking about love. Survival is not a sentimental game.

I wrap my arms around my torso. No one is looking. No one is looking. No one is looking at my locket.

In the middle of the green, there are a group of worshippers. They’re knelt in formation in front of a plastic plant. Amongst them is a skeletal child, hands formed into a steeple before her heart. Below, a domed stomach, full with hunger. Shame swells in my chest. The locket feels heavier.

The rucksack on my back seems to radiate heat. Everyone is looking. Everyone is looking… No, they’re not. But they should be.

Quickly, before I can change my mind I force my body to take a sharp turn in the opposite direction. The green is small enough that it only takes two minutes to reach the other side. Preston is sitting on the wooden stairs leading up to a rough shack - this, we call the lab.

“Preston,” I say, too loudly.

“What’s up?” He grins. He’s always so cheerful. It makes me want to hurt him sometimes.

He must read the distress on my face because he quickly says “lets talk inside”.

I follow him through the open door, trying not to notice the gauntness of his face up close. Inside, every surface is covered in books, diagrams of plants and equipment. Even after he rest of us have given up hope, Preston continues to soldier on. “Knowledge is power!” he always repeats.

He has become the town’s unofficial leader. He is quiet, unassuming, and the last person you would expect to take charge. But that’s what makes him perfect. He doesn’t hope too loudly.

Because here’s the thing - you have to wean yourself off of hope. Losing it all at once will rip you apart, but nobody is good enough of a liar to convince themselves that things are turning around. Preston, working diligently in the background, is enough to let us taper it off slowly.

Sometimes I wonder if he knows this, if he’s doing this on purpose. Maybe he’s just smarter than the rest of us. I don’t think for a second he truly believes there’s an antidote for the crops. Maybe his work is just his form of distraction. He has his science, the worshippers have their faith and I have… Well, I have my locket.

He moves a microscope from a stool and gestures to it –

“Please, sit down”

I don’t want to sit. I sit.

“I have something… valuable.”

He raises his eyebrows and waits patiently for me to continue.

“I don’t know what to do with it.”

“And you came to me.” It’s spoken like a statement, but it’s a question.

“It would be easier to show you.”

Carefully, I unclasp the locket chain from the back of my neck and lift it out from underneath my shirt. It makes a loud clatter as I place it on the table.

“You know, you should look more excited. What’s inside could change the world.” I say, jokingly. He looks like he doesn’t believe me. I don’t know if I believe me, either.

He reaches forward and opens the locket. The movement spills some of the contents – tiny, light brown –

“Seeds” he breathes. I don’t know whether to look triumphant. His face is falling already. “They’ll be infected.”

“Will they? I don’t know. I locked them up before the disease reached my area. I saw how people fought over them in the north.”

Preston was silent, eyes wide with excitement, tongue tracing his upper lip. Then, he frowns. “Why didn’t you bring these to me before?”

I don’t speak and in the silence I think he hears my answer. See, the reason I’m writing this and the reason I brought the seeds to Preston are interlinked.

We’ve all done things we’re not proud of. There’s a reason I started off telling you about people who killed their loved ones for food. You have to understand that survival is brutal and sharing can seem like a fool’s game.

There’s a prime time of year to plant seeds. When you’re hot, sticky and uncomfortable, you know it’s time to sow. I couldn’t survive alone out there, waiting for the seasons to change. But here, in this town, I had a chance to make it through the winter living off the meagre supplies we manage to scrounge from derelict supermarkets and abandoned homes.

In this place, people will rip open any bag, suitcase and floorboard in sight to find food someone has stowed away. But no one wants to know about the memories you keep pressed to your heart. Nobody would look inside an old locket.

I’ve been here the best part of nine months. Now, the days have been growing hotter, more oppressive. The kind of sun that coaxes sprouts to wriggle out from the soil. So, this morning I filled my backpack with everything I own ready to abandon ship.

But the image of a little girl, her ribcage jutting from her body like a ladder, praying to a plastic plant... She had more hope than me.

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Now the seeds are gone it’s a weight off my chest. I will be burying the locket with this letter inside. It’s a small shot, but I hope someone, or something, reads it one day.

Perhaps you are human. Maybe the crops grew. If we’re lucky, we can harvest seeds for the summer to come. Or maybe you belong to a different time and a different place.

Either way, I want you to look after each other. And I want you to remember not to lose hope.

Signing off now.

Love, humanity.