'The delicate green shoots grew

in the warm spring sunlight.

A vibrantly beautiful hue

spread across the new pink flowers.

The scent of mown grass and dry earth

bakes in the warmth of the sun.'

The book is snapped shut with a dry, rustling sound. Despite the vivid description, I can't visualise this lively world. All that I can see out of the window is a barren bleakness of rocks, and nothing even suggests that life would have been able to survive out there, once upon a time . . . and as I imagine the beauty and the splendour of nature that once existed I wonder how the extinction of life was ever allowed to happen.

A wail, a haunting screech, soaring agross wasteland winds, a battlecry, my child my child! Scorched black earth, smoking, barefoot she climbs, through the dirt and debris of her world. All of the trees are twisted and dead. The great drought has taken all life, both flesh and plant. There is no seed left to be sown. The end of days. She will wander that charred rock forever and lament.

Tossing trash aside

Without a second thought,

Adding to the rotting piles strewn about

Tearing apart the land

For selfish indulgence,

Destroying vibrant vegetation

Tainting the air

With manmade machines,

Polluting everything

Littering the waters

With human filth,

Slowly killing the life within

Someday soon, seething with rage,

Heart filled with anger,

Gaia will descend

To reap her final revenge

Dear Human Friend,

Your thoughtful gift gives me much happiness.

You see, I lost my companion a few weeks ago. I don’t know what caused her affliction. We used to hold tails together and swim with abandon.

There’s frequent talk about inhabitants in my world losing partners and family members. They too, like my love, choked up and left us alone. I was in a deep funk, much like Picasso in his blue, blue days.

You understood our plight. You send us gifts galore just to alleviate our sorrow. You try to make our world better. These gifts last forever, leaving a legacy for future generations. But the rate at which we lose partners, perhaps these gifts will last past extinction.

Last week, my friend got huge kicks going in and out of a six circle transparent exercise machine. It brought him so much happiness, he almost stopped being crabby.

Your incessant gifts make us forget losses. Is it a bit much to ask for instruction manuals? You see, some folks here just don’t get it right. The sea turtle wanted to imitate the little crab, but it got all wrapped up in that very same six-pack. I mean, there are age and weight restrictions, right? I gotta say, you humans think wisely before testing out equipment. One silly animal did not even know how to suck out of the colorful straw. He put it up his nose!

Your generous gift material endures long after you leave. Atop the food chain you may stand, but with your humble degradability, we see you’re one of us. Your benevolence in spreading the “forever” wealth around is peerless. The nest had bright blue plastic material, keeping the bird family safe.The other day, the mamma lost her spouse. Apparently, for reason unbeknownst to us all, his abdomen exploded. The devastated widow stopped foraging food. But your wondrous material saved the day, and the hungry family gobbled it greedily. The next time she visits, I will let her know I included her in the thank-you note. I thought she would get here by now, but something must’ve held her up.

My friend the hermit crab found a new belly protector. He uses a plastic bottle cap. It’s hardier than the scattered shells he once was used to. I happily align myself to your thinking; technology does mean evolution. He says you like to take those lowly shells for yourself and replace with the invincible bottle caps. Such stewardship is a human trait. Those incessant presents come thoughtfully included with plastic wraps and gift bags. Indeed the humans are wise; they think of everything.

I love the pink, shiny stuff you put out for me. It’s my crutch for the one I lost. She promised to be by my side, but left me way too premature. Her demise made me lonely, but the pink stick with fluffy tips gives me much comfort. I feel like Picasso in his Rosé days. Swimming together, I sing La Vie en Rose with accordion playing in my mind. I’ve become a giddy teenager with his first love. The world is so much nicer through rose-tinted glasses. I grip her with my tail, and we cavort along. Long after I’m gone, she will serve another, until to serve there’s no other. Such is her eternal promise, all thanks to you.

Gratefully yours,

The Once-Lonely Sea Horse.

Photo by Justin Hofman / Wildlife Photographer of the Year

I thought they were leaves. It hadn't seemed very windy when I'd walked to my car, but as I drove to school, I found my conveyance bombarded with tiny leaves swirling through the air. It's springtime, I thought. This looks like a fall flurry, an autumnal assault. Where did all of these leaves come from?

I was transported back to New England. I remembered driving down dark country roads at night, the headlights illuminating only the road in front of me. The tiny skittering leaves dancing before my car. The larger ones rolling across the pavement, doing impressive impersonations of mincing mice or frisky frogs, daring the auto gods. I'd cringe for each one that tempted my tires, waiting for the telltale… Splat! that never came.

I pulled into the school parking lot to wait for my son. He got into the car and said, “I guess it must be migration season.”

I liked at him in confusion and asked, “Why?”

“Look at all of the butterflies!”

I shook the scales from my eyes, and looked around me, as if for the first time. Lost in my memories, I had failed to notice the miracle surrounding me today.

*********

@MayaISharp It's easy to write gloom-and-doom about the environmental crisis. However, the day that inspired this piece was based on hope, despite the environmental crisis.

www.marginatrix.com

https://themarginatrix.weebly.com/

@marginatrix

#PaintedLadies

The grass is greener on the other side

thats what they said at least,

as they destroyed the only tree left

It’s better over there,

they promised, as the destroyed another acre of the forest

the plants may die, the animals too

but they say,

”who cares for you”

as they cut down my home,

my humble abode,

and my mother whailed and screeched

when the green became the road,

this is the place,

i used to know,

the trees, the birds, my only ever home

and you ruined it all,

with your mass destruction,

you laugh and you smile,

as you knock my house down,

the grass is greener on the other side,

it is my only option,

to believe what they said, what they promised,

when they decided our lives were replaceable,

the grass might be greener on the other side,

you turnt my home into a table,

it‘s over now i say,

as i look at the world one last time

i hope the grass is greener on the other side,

for this is where i die.

We talk about the world as if it is of our people

As if the connections and interactions in our souls are what is making it turn

Ever continuous

Revolution

What makes the sunshine shine and decides which way the waves shall crash upon the shore

Or themselves

Stacked upon molecules of same

Different

Pieces

Forever held in bonds of uncanny strength

But

“The world as it is today”

Could be almost the same as it was before

But we People do not grind mountains over the time of years

We people create them in days

Mounds of our waste

We people do not catch lightning to the trees and restore new beauty to the forest in time

A birth from flame

Our people cut them down

Then throw them away

Create toxins to feed our babies

Cures for diseases

we made

Paper to trade for love and food instead of good work and time

We all have lies that look back at us in the mirror

Are you comfortable with that?

“The world” is not us

We are The People

So when we talk about our Earth

And what is happening

And how it is

Let us remember that people do the bidding that people can see

The Earth has not destroyed itself

Do not desensitize and pass the blame when you say the world is so bad

it is this and that

But

I say the humans are so bad these days

I scrunched myself into a smaller ball, my hands gripping my knees so tightly, my knuckles popped. I held my breath, waiting to see if that small, but sharp burst of sound had given me away. I had been hearing the crunching of footsteps in the dead leaves of my yard for the last half hour, but so far, they had not found a way to get in. The Earth heaved, the thumping vibrations echoing in my bones. I looked at my watch. They were getting closer together now.

“Where’s Jeff?” The hoarse whisper sounded close.

“Here.” Another voice came softly from my left, not bothering to whisper. Something small but meaty dropped onto my bare leg and began to crawl up, and it was all I could do to keep still. I knew which insects always survived.

“This one’s buttoned up tight.” The first voice said, this time in a deep bass rumble. I heard some loud rustling sounds, like something being dragged through the leaves, but I couldn’t picture what was going on until I heard the distinctive creaking of the old bench that sits under the trees in my side yard. They were sitting down mere feet away from me, just on the other side of my basement wall. A drop of sweat emerged from my hair like a clownfish from its anemone, and meandered slowly down my forehead toward my eye, while the small but solid form inched in similar fashion, up my leg. I dared not move as the conversation continued outside.

“What have you got so far?” A female voice asked, bringing my count up to three. I was pretty sure they were all here, I had been listening to them trying to get in, and was fairly certain I had been hearing three separate sets of footsteps.

“Nothing much from this street.” The second, softer voice came back, sounding annoyed. I swallowed a nervous giggle before it could break free from my throat, and grimaced as a gulp of air was forced painfully down ahead of it. The tiny creature on my leg had reached as far as my knee, and I could feel it tweaking the hairs there as it felt for a foothold. It had been many long months since there had been water to wash with, let alone shave my legs. I swallowed again and tightened my hand into a fist in an effort to hold it still, and my eye closed of its own accord as the drip of sweat suddenly rolled quickly over my eyebrow and dropped into my eye socket.

“Right?” The woman answered sarcastically. “Law abiding citizens.” She scoffed. I snorted, then froze, as I waited to see if the group outside had heard me, but they were deep in their own discussion. The three laughed together at this last sally, and I heard the leaves murmuring again as they got up and walked up the steps to the front yard. I loosened my grip with a sigh, and swiped at my thigh, where the insect was approaching the hem of my shorts. I heard it land and skitter away, as I redirected my hand to knuckle the sweat from my eye socket. Listening to the early morning sounds outside the concrete walls surrounding me, I sighed again as an uneasy silence descended. I’d been cowering here in the basement since the announcement yesterday afternoon, hiding from the inevitable looters. The world was already a dark and depressing place, rife with danger and disappointment. The newest development in the fast declining story of the Earth was the last straw. The short straw in my opinion, held hidden in a fistful until after all the other straws had been drawn.

The first, lengthier straws were pulled from a lax fist, long before anyone realized how important balance was. Until then, the scales had been tipped in favor of Mother Nature, and it seemed that her bounty was infinite. There was plenty of unoccupied land, the air and water was still clean, and extinctions were barely noticed. When they were, it was only by a few extreme animal rights, or Earth conservation groups, which were mostly branded “Tree Huggers” by the majority, and widely ignored. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the world population was still only around one billion, and the industrial revolution had barely begun to take off, it was already too late. Even if we had taken a completely different direction at that point in history, it would have been too late to change the way society thought as a whole. And it was the thinking that was wrong all along.

Deciding I was safe enough for the moment, I unfolded myself and crawled over to my homemade scope to get the lay of the land. Granted, I could only see a small portion of my backyard and a bit of the town below, but right now it was still too dark to see much, so I abandoned it, and checking my watch, I braced myself for the next beat in the chest of the Earth. It came six whole minutes before it was supposed to, and I clutched my knees to my chest until the booming vibrations had ceased.

I had always thought the world would be reliably consistent during my lifetime. I mean, there were changes, of course. Things that were considered positive, like new technology; cars, telephones, televisions, and home appliances. Things that made our lives easier. I never worried about the things our collective awareness kept throwing in the face of the public, between the sitcoms and reality shows. When each problem came to the penultimate moment, it didn’t take much to convince myself that it wouldn’t affect me, that it wouldn’t be a real problem until after I was gone. But I was wrong, as were we all, who allowed ourselves to be seduced by the conveniences of technology, of money and an easy life. We all went about our short, pointless existence, working our jobs, walking our dogs and driving our cars. Most of the people who were like me, whose world was small, including our home, our work and our friends, rarely looked beyond it, and when we did, we thought of it as something “outside”, as something that would never really affect us in our own little universe. Boy, were we wrong.

To be fair, I made it to fifty before anything really drastic happened. But the year I turned fifty-three, the bees disappeared. They had been talking about the problem for decades, since the appearance of the Africanized honey bee, and then more recently, as pesticides became an issue. That year the wild fires in America were the worst they had ever been, and with half the states on fire, the smoke killed over two thirds of the continent’s population of bees. During that same year, every volcano on earth became active within hours of each other, even the ones that had been inactive for so long, we had no idea they were there. Smoke lay thickly over the planet, with falling ash and particulate contamination so bad, the hospitals and doctor’s offices were crammed with the most vulnerable among us. Along with the respiratory complaints, were the burns and crush injuries from the myriad of chasms that kept opening in unlikely places, and with visibility as limited as it was, people kept falling into them. But worse than that, many animals and insects died, leaving their corpses everywhere, and birds fell out of the sky so often, even that became a hazard. Combined with the extreme weather around the rest of the world, caused by the global warming that was beginning to come to a head, and the rampant pesticide use around the globe, it was like the rest committed suicide. All the bees, in all the hives, suddenly dropped dead after a forty eight hour period of frantic activity. Even the killer bee hives were affected, with the bees abandoning the hives and glutting themselves, until they died as well.

By that time, of course, the bee story was obliterated by all the other disasters going on in the world. The pollution in the atmosphere from the fires and volcanoes, were slowly killing all the crops growing everywhere, by keeping them from being able to photosynthesize, and those were already few and far between because of the next emerging problem. The pesticides and herbicides that had helped to kill the bees, were now responsible for the fact that many farmers were having trouble getting any crops to grow at all. So much soil was contaminated, there wasn’t enough left to grow the food needed to sustain half the population it was intended to feed. Crops had been dwindling for years, forcing many people to hoard seeds until they were no longer viable, and many kinds of fruits and vegetables had disappeared altogether. The only thing that had been available for a number of years were processed foods, with so many additives in them to make them stretch, they barely resembled food anymore. The news that even that was in danger was depressing enough, but we had only begun to digest that, when we were stunned by the announcement that all the oceans and rivers had been overfished. All the marine life that was left was put on the endangered species list, and laws were set up to outlaw fishing. Even keeping tanks and aquariums became illegal without a permit. Weeks after this development, the news broke, that even if the marine life of the world was not severely depleted, the waters were so polluted they wouldn’t be able to sustain life for another year, if that long. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, the floating island of plastic had now reached the size of the African continent, and was trapping and killing thousands of unwary animals who swam into it every day, thinking it was land. I told myself I didn’t care about that, I didn’t like seafood anyways. I tried not to think about all the animals suffering slow painful deaths, and how that would fill the waters with corpses that would make the oceans nothing but a simmering stew of death, lapping at the shores of the world. Admittedly less and less, now that the moon was so far away. But I’m getting ahead of myself. One thing at a time, right?

Only we weren’t so lucky, because on the heels of the ocean disaster, came the news that the last stretch of rainforest was on fire. Like an avalanche, the disasters just kept rolling in like clockwork, never giving us a moment to absorb things. There was only time to patch the holes in the dam as fast as we could. But even that seemed like it was happening in another world. One that was far removed from the one I lived in, with my box of a home, my cube of an office, and my little carton of routine, all wrapped up in the cozy little package of my world.

Only now, the illusion had been shattered, and the pieces scattered too far apart to make sense. And the fact that the announcement hadn’t come until the vibrations were already being felt made it that much worse. It meant that there was even less time left than we were being told there was, and what we were told, was already creating worldwide panic. Hence, my position in the basement. I lived on a hill above town, and the things I had seen down there immediately following the announcement, were enough to give me nightmares for the rest of my life. Which, I’m thinking now, won’t be all that long.

The Earth thrummed again, and I held onto a pipe coming out of the floor above me, until it was over. Checking my watch, I could see that instead of coming in regular intervals for a few weeks before advancing, it was coming closer together now, every time. This time it was eleven minutes early. I tapped the face of my watch to make sure it was still running. I hadn’t been paying attention to the vibrations in the weeks leading up to the broadcast. There was only one channel going out over the airwaves, and even that was showing white noise most of the time. It was supposed to be kept open for emergencies but no one could afford the electricity it took to watch TV, anyways. Only those with solar panels had electricity after the grid went down, and now, even they didn’t have it because of the layers of smoke and clouds between us and the sun. Most towns, including ours, had a television screen erected somewhere in the town, by which the last remaining group of scientists conveyed their proclamations. And even though it had been nearly impossible to get close enough to it to see the picture, it was loud enough that those within a mile of it could hear. My house was less than a quarter mile away from the town screen, so I heard everything that came out of it. Last night after the announcement, it went off completely, causing the crowd assembled around it to fly into a panic. I thought the silence was a relief, at first, but when the crowd descended onto the town below my house, and began to destroy it, I changed my mind.

If I’m being honest, I would have to say it was the same year the bees died, that I first noticed the wobble. Only it wasn’t a wobble at first, it was more like a heart with an extra beat. Before that, though, it was like everyone had tinnitus all the time, with a persistent hum instead of a ringing. It wasn’t until just recently that the extra beat came often enough to be really noticeable, happening more than once or twice a month, when the moon was at a certain point in its cycle. Before we knew it, the extra thump in the chest of the earth, had turned into a dangerous wobble, and the poor ignorant sheep like me were looking to the brightest minds in the world to tell us what was going on. But by that point, there was hardly anyone left that could pull it together enough to figure it out. There were no more governments, they had been shut down when the first announcements had created panic, sending honest, vulnerable people like me into hiding. I had used the time between then and now to prepare myself.

Years ago, I had begun storing food and water beneath my house. Thinking about that now, I know I was jumping the gun. There was still a government and an economy, albeit a depressed, broken one, but it was still limping along at that point. People were broke and in debt, the government money had run out, with a deficit in the trillions of dollars, but we still had jobs, credit cards and many of our freedoms were still intact. There was still enough food that a large percentage of the population were obese, despite there being over seven billion people on the Earth. Why I thought things were bad enough to begin stockpiling at that point, I can’t remember, because when I think about those times now, I can’t believe the abundance we took for granted. Anyways, by the time the bees disappeared, I had revamped my basement into a grow room and had begun collecting all the things that made it run smoothly. I had a sound proof section set up, with chickens and rabbits, and I had two pygmy goats for milk. It had taken me weeks with egg crates and my staple gun to cover the walls and ceiling, and it also had the added effect of keeping the smell from driving me out, as long as I shoveled the waste every week. But that hadn’t lasted long. There was no way I could continue to feed the animals, and I had let them go weeks ago, knowing I could never slaughter them for their meat. I just wasn’t wired that way, no matter how hungry I was. And I was hungry. My grow room hadn’t lasted long after the electricity had gone out. I had installed bars and metal screens on every window and door in the house above, and had taken the time to close and lock everything before coming down here yesterday. But I had very little food left, and that I was rationing, to try and make it last.

The announcement last night started with the events from ten years ago, when the bees had all died. The screen had shown a compilation of views of all the disasters going on around the globe, starting with the fires and volcanoes at the very beginning, and finishing with views of the moon, then and now. The voice coming out of the speakers had spoken about how the moon had swung away from the Earth sooner than expected, because of the appearance of a rogue planet in our solar system, which had settled into orbit between Mercury and Venus, pushing the Earth into a new orbit further from the sun. It talked about how the new planet was dragging the moon away from the Earth at an unprecedented rate, causing her to lean further onto her side and interrupting the hold the moon had on our oceans. Now, as it moved further away with every rotation of the new planet, (dubbed Calypso because of the way it was affecting the sea), our whole planet had begun to wobble dangerously every time the moon reached aphelion.

Now the wobble booms back and forth through the earth at my feet like a giant stomping around town. And the footsteps are getting closer together. If it continues like this, soon it will be constant. Maybe if we had heeded the earth when the first signs became apparent, maybe then we would have been able to figure this out. But with all of our last ditch recycling efforts and halfhearted measures, and with all the people who didn’t believe, or didn’t care, none of us ever had a chance. There are still probably scientists somewhere in a bunker, working out the problems they think they can still solve, but none of us will ever know it, now that the earth is on the verge of tearing herself apart.

I checked my watch again, anticipating the movement of the ground before it came. I still had fifteen minutes, but I thought it wouldn’t be that long. I moved toward the door, wanting to be outside when things fell apart. The last one had been so violent, I thought the house was coming down around my ears. I made it outside just as the vibrations began, and I stumbled to the nearest large oak so I would have something to hold onto. I closed my eyes as the tree swayed alarmingly, and I tightened my grip, feeling the rough bark scrape against my cheek.

“Mom?!” A familiar voice called out as the world trembled and shook.

“Crystal?!” I lifted my face from the tree and looked around. I don’t know how, but she was perched there next to the house, looking up at me as I straddled the tree. I let go with one hand, and just as I reached it toward her, the world splintered and the jagged slivers started to slide away, leaving me in a confusion of darkness and light, in patterns I couldn’t identify. I squeezed my eyes shut tight, and held on for dear life as things came apart around me. I lost my grip on the tree, and flailed my arms as I fell into the broken spaces in between the pieces of the world that were falling around me. I screamed into the silence, losing consciousness as I spun away from myself.

###

I woke to dimness and restriction of movement, but I was warm, and the bed beneath me was soft and comfortable. Looking around, I could see someone sleeping in the chair beside my bed. I tried to clear my throat, but it was dry, and I looked around for something to drink. There was a cup beside the bed, but when I tried to reach for it, I found my arms wouldn’t move. I must have made some noise then, because the sleeping form in the chair moved, and resolved itself into my daughter.

“Hey mom.” She greeted me softly. I relaxed into the pillow.

“Hey honey.” I answered her, my gaze roaming over her worried face. “What’s going on?” She looked like she hadn’t slept in a week. I wanted to touch her, but I still couldn’t lift my arms. I looked down at myself, but I was completely covered up with blankets, so I couldn’t see why I was unable to move.

“Mom?” Her voice broke and I looked back up at her sharply.

“What?” I asked, and I could feel my face screwing up into a frown. She put her hand on me then, up near my shoulder and grabbed the corner of the blanket there. The look on her face was unreadable as she pulled the blanket down, exposing the white canvas of a strait jacket, strapping my arms over my stomach. I looked back up at her in shock.

“What’s going on?” I asked her again, this time with a little bit of panic trying to close my throat. I swallowed it down. “Baby?” I asked, making an effort to stay calm. Her eyes flashed to the door and then back to me.

“They’re just keeping you from hurting yourself.” She told me. I opened my mouth but I couldn’t pick one thing to say from the myriad of choices bouncing through my brain.

“What, why?” I was racking my brain for a reason why I would need to be in this predicament. She was picking up on my distress, and tears were gathering in her eyes as she tried to explain.

“Mom, you keep talking about strange things happening, and no one knows what you’re talking about.” She was obviously upset, so even though I was feeling like I was about to lose it, I tried even harder to keep myself calm.

“Okay.” I said and took a deep breath. “So then if I’m just talking, why am I restrained?” I asked her, in a fairly normal tone of voice. She started crying then, and it tore my heart to see her thus, but I kept my mouth shut and waited for her to answer. She wiped her eyes, sniffed mightily and took a deep breath herself.

“You stabbed an EMT, Mom.” She told me. That got my attention.

“What?!” I tried to sit up. I managed to raise myself up off of the bed, but with no way to support myself, I collapsed back onto the pillows. Damn it! I tried again, swinging my legs down and knocking the covers off onto the floor. The door opened, and doctors and nurses swarmed into the room. Lights flicked on overhead, blinding me, and I closed my eyes and let myself go limp as everyone cooperated to bring order back to the room. I waited until the flurry was over before I opened them again. Crystal was standing back out of the way, watching, tears streaming down her face. When the nurse by my head was finished with what she was doing, she motioned for Crystal to come back, and moved out of her way as she came back to my side. I lay there and waited. Knowing me, she came and sat down beside the bed, holding me still with the power of her eyes, alone.

“So, a few weeks ago I got a call from your boss, asking if I knew why you hadn’t shown up for work.” She began. I frowned, not remembering this sequence of events. She put her hand on my chest. “I know. Just listen.” She said and proceeded to tell me a version of my own history that I didn’t know anything about. The more she talked, the more the ball of panic I had been suppressing, rose to the surface. I couldn’t help it, I started to hyperventilate and she grabbed for my call button and pressed it frantically, her eyes searching my face.

“Are you okay?” She asked. I shook my head violently from side to side.

“Get me out of here!” I gasped. “Take it off!” My voice rose in pitch until it scared even me, and I clamped my lips together to keep from screaming.

“I can’t!” My daughter cried, her eyes and nose dripping as she pressed the button over and over. Doctors and nurses burst into the room again, and I lost sight of her as she backed out of their way. I felt a sting on my neck and the world swam and went away.

I came back to myself sometime later, not knowing where I was but with a deep clawing feeling in my stomach. How long had I been in here without keeping track of the wobble? How did this place even exist, with its lights and electrical equipment? Wasn’t the grid destroyed? All these questions were swirling around in my head, and every time one came to the surface, it would pop down into my chest, making my heart beat too fast. I looked around for Crystal, and just as I had decided to let myself call out for her, the door opened and she came in, followed by my army of medical personnel. She came straight to me, and I belatedly realized that I had been released from the strait jacket, when she sat down and took my hand.

“Hey mom.” She said gently as she kissed my cheek. I held her there with our clasped hands as I kissed her back. Her face was wet with tears, and it shook me that she was so affected. She never cried unless things were serious.

“Hey baby girl.” I greeted her back. She leaned into me for a moment.

“How do you feel?” She asked me, concern infused into every syllable. I drew back and looked closely at her face. She held my eyes for a moment before they slid away from mine, and I knew then that something was very wrong.

“Just tell me.” I said, using my most serious “mom” tone. She looked up at the doctors surrounding us for support, but they all just looked back without saying a word. Puzzled, I watched her for clues to what was going on.

“I-they’re making me commit you, momma!” She burst out. My head felt like I drank too much coffee, waves of pins and needles sweeping over it. I clutched desperately at her hand, but mine was restrained to the bed, and she easily evaded my grasping fingers.

“But why!” I cried out, looking from face to unfamiliar face as my own daughter ran out of the room crying. One woman scowled at all the others as she ordered everyone out of the room, and they all did her bidding, following my daughter out the door. She came around the bed and sat in the chair Crystal had vacated.

“Deanna, do you know who the President of the United States is?” She asked me, like I was a child, or an idiot or something. I took a deep breath and let it out in an obvious sigh, rolling my eyes at her. “Humor me.” She said. I looked at her for a second, doubtfully, but she continued to stare into my eyes, so I shifted myself uncomfortably, trying to sit up. She stood and repositioned my pillows, helping me to sit up with my hands restrained to the bedrails. I rattled the restraints.

“Is this necessary?” I asked her. She nodded and gestured, sitting back down.

“Completely. Now answer the question.” She said, and I could see her impatience, so I relented.

“It was Donald Trump before the government disassembled.” I said. She shook her head.

“It was Donald Trump before it was Hillary Clinton.” She said. “Don’t you remember?” I shook my head. No, this was wrong.

“No, the government is gone.” I started to feel a stitch in my side as a wave of panic washed over me. “It’s gone and so are the bees.” I babbled. “There’s no more fish in the ocean and no more birds in the sky.” I began to cry. I knew what I remembered was true. I had lived through all that stuff, I knew I had. There was no way I had made it all up in my head. The woman stood up and grabbed a box of tissues from the table beside the bed. She set them gently on my blanket covered knees, where I could reach them. I ignored them, letting the tears stream down my face as I watched her pick up the remote from the same table and point it at a TV hanging over the bed.

“Here, this might help.” She said, flipping through channels until she found a news channel. Wow, a TV! I hadn’t even noticed it until she turned it on. How were they doing this? The last time I had seen a TV was years ago, and I stared at it in fascination, completely forgetting, for the space of a few seconds, the situation I was in. The next headline froze us both. A blonde woman in a pantsuit was talking in front of a smoking volcano.

“Now, in less than forty-eight hours, every crater on Earth has become active.” She said as the room began to spin. Her words followed me down into the darkness. “First the bees, and now this!”

The End