Corn off the cob
Angelina stared at the mountains beyond the cornfield and sighed. “It’s so beautiful! How could this happen?”
Gabriel shook his head. “No snow in two years. The crops can’t hold up.”
The relentless sun penetrated the fabric of their shade umbrella, blistering their skin.
Then the corn began to pop.
“Corn off the cob” backstory
I will be honest that I don’t think I succeeded in telling a “story” with this one. It is not the story of Angelina and Gabriel. There is no conflict between them. There is no resolution. This is a futuristic story of life with climate change. The world as we know it will be the same in some ways — beautiful mountains on the horizon — but our globe’s delicate natural systems will be damaged to the point where some areas are simply unlivable. Many regions will experience extreme heat, drought, and impairments to farming and food production.
And there will be raging, out-of-control fires that destroy thousands of homes and millions of acres of wilderness. Oh wait. That is actually happening right now.
While I am one of the most optimistic people I know, I wrestle with this daily. I hope those in power come to understand their crucial role in helping to ensure our planet can sustain life beyond our current, living generations. Those in charge of environmental policy need to actually care about the environment, now and in the future, and be in dialog with scientists who have the hard evidence that now is the time to create meaningful critical disaster-averting change.
There are actually reasons to be optimistic. Millions of businesses and municipalities worldwide are taking action on their own to create change, by reducing their carbon footprint. If you want a reason to cheer, check out www.drawdown.org.
I’m not trying to preach, here. I don’t want to ruffle feathers, start arguments, or stand on a soap box. But you may find that I will occasionally attempt to create a little awareness through the vehicle of fiction.
Thank you, as always, for reading.
