Like fleas on a dog...

When things got heated in Europe and the Middle East over borders and such, everyone speculated about world war 3. It never happened though. When the pandemic of 2020 came and killed thousands, people thought this might be the thing that kills us all off, especially with variant after variant popping up. We got through it. But all the while things were at work. Natural disasters, fires, earth quakes, people blamed it on global warming. There were a few science fiction writers who saw it coming but didn’t actually think it was true. Fantasy they said, not actual truth. The Earth is trying to renew herself, some said. Well, the truth is she was trying to in a way. You see, it turns out we are the flea on her back and she is so frustrated with the havoc we have caused she is trying to shake us off, anyway she can. Fires and volcanos like fever fighting an infection. Earthquakes and magnetic polar shifts caused by Earth trying to shake us, scratch us off like a dog rolling and scratching to remove the cause of an awful itch. Viruses released like flea powder to kill us off. What’s next, a flea dip? Or, dare I ask, is there something worse?

Seasons are not like they used to be. Places that got hot in summer now get the coldest winters. The arctic poles are now the hottest summers and ice that had not melted in thousands of years, did and released so many secrets. Micro-organisms that survived being frozen for millennia are now running rampant through our air and water. Some are wondering if this is what wiped out the dinosaurs. It must have been part of the cause at least. Animals were effected first and then it quickly escalated from there.

Wildlife began showing up in towns and settlements. At first everyone thought it was just that forest fires had diverted their path for food and migration, but soon the wildlife wasn’t just a few coming into town looking for food and shelter. Whole herds of caribou, well off their natural course, showed up in cities sick and weak. Whales and sea life washed up on shores that have never seen such things. Bears and wolves somehow found their way to places that just didn’t make sense. The animals were confused, sick and afraid.

The scientific world was baffled and the rest of human kind started to fear everything. Violent outbursts became a regular thing in every city. No one realized at first that things were connected. Then continents started shifting. Not just an earthquake along fault lines kind of shifts. Whole land masses rose and fell. Africa went sideways and suddenly had a new line of mountains curving up through it. Europe lost huge amounts of land to the sea. Asia, instead of little clusters of islands off the coast was now one big land mass raised up above sea level. New Zealand became the lower portion of Asia and Australia disappeared completely. North and South America became 4 different land masses and shifted so much, what was once dessert was now sea bed. Mountains that had stood for eons now crumbled and fell flat. Areas that were once flat fields were suddenly mountains and lakes and little pockets of farmland.

There are now only pockets of humankind living. We have no idea how many have managed to survive, but that is all we do now, survive. Mother earth got mad and decided she had had enough. Like a gold fish in a frozen pond waiting for the slow thaw of spring, we sat back and waited for things to happen. We had no idea the gardener had plans for a parking lot.

My Name is Sasha and I was almost a teenage when things started to really change. It didn’t take long for things to happen really. My family and I had been living on the east coast of Canada and when the wildlife showed up in town my older sister got sick. She was fine one day, working a shift at Tim Horton’s and then two days later she was babbling about feeling silly and couldn’t keep her balance. Walking was hard for her and my parents took her to the ER. There was plenty with the same symptoms already there and some dropped dead within hours. My sister was gone the next day. My dad was next just a few days later. Mom packed up the car with the rest of us and we started heading west for family. We lost one of my brothers on the way and by the time we got to the prairies my other brother was ill. A family of six was now just me and my mom. I am not sure how Mom kept going but she did. The world was complete chaos with strange weather and fires and land shifting. We couldn’t drive anymore with the prairies now being a mountain range. So mom and I took to walking and looking for some kind of shelter. We found a house that had been a farm. There was parts of the land that still had a garden with vegetables and herbs. Mom knew how to take care of the plants and get the seeds for planting the next season. It has taken a few years for things to settle into actual seasons and they aren’t like before, but we can plant and harvest enough to keep us going. We had a young couple join us last year. They had been wandering for over 3 years trying to find a place that would sustain them. They happened to find us and just in time too. The woman was pregnant and mom helped to deliver her baby just 2 days after they had found us. We all get along pretty well and things have been good the last few months.

I guess this is how the world is now. I miss the way things were but sometimes it feels like the past was all just a dream and the way things are now is the boring monotony of truth. No computers or motorized vehicles. Electric lights only exist for us on the farm because there was solar panels and a generator already here. We had not been able to use the generator anymore by the time Caleb and Nancy joined us, but Caleb figured out how to make it work off organic waste. Now we have a real farm going and have made this little place pretty nice. We got an invasion of wildlife a couple times but have figured out how to put up defensive fences where they needed to be to keep our gardens safe and the animals away from our house. We don’t eat meat like we used to. Caleb traveled to a lake a few days away and came back with fish last month. I remember hating fish as a kid but now it Is my favourite. Mom managed to find chickens the first year we got here and we eat what eggs we can get. Last year we ate one of the chickens as she never seemed to be laying any eggs. Mom was not impressed with the taste of it, so we have decided not to eat any more of them.

Mom has gotten pretty good at gardening and cooking veggies. Nancy is amazing with sewing and mending pretty much any cloth. She made some cute clothes for baby Ava. I think we have a fairly comfortable existence now. It is human nature to keep trying to survive, so we will do so until mother earth decides she is fed up again. I often wonder what else has changed but there is no more radio transmissions to tell us any news. Caleb and I check every so often. Sometimes we hear someone trying to get a response from anyone but we don’t have a way to respond. Caleb says he will go explore and see if there is another farm within a few miles and bring back anything he can. I keep bugging mom to let me go with him, but so far she won’t. One day, she says, but not today. I kind of think she is afraid to let me out of her sight for fear I won’t come back. Can’t really blame her because for a while I was afraid to be in a different room than her. I watched her daily for signs of illness, so afraid I would be left alone. Nancy is like that with baby Ava, won’t let her out of sight for anything. Ava is crawling and loves to try walking with holding your hands. She will be a handful when she can walk on her own. She is so curious and always smiling and making cute babble sounds. No one talks about her future though, we are afraid to voice what may never be. It is a question we all have though. What does the future hold for us and for little Ava. Will she see a new world full of promise? One thing is for sure, fleas or not, we will survive this battle with mother earth as long as humanly possible.