Earth Personified

• Jessica Davidson, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2016

Rivers spilled relentlessly from her pained cobalt eyes, resting in the oceans which are the hollows of her cheeks. Her storms of fury and anguish were left unheeded, disregarded as her children ran from her embrace. As her heart broke, ice splintered in the Antarctic waters and as she hastily swiped away her tears the oceans rose and devoured feverishly rich vegetation, laced with life. In response, the children built walls, they injected her skin with poison and her lungs tightened as she suffocated, sucking in the sky’s dirty smog. They cast her veins with plastic and like a parasite sucked the fuel from inside of her, gouging her flesh with heavy machinery knives and stitching it back together in the wrong places. Her whispers of warning through the pine needles are barely audible today, merely long, sorrow filled sighs that plead, “Stop! Without me, you are killing yourself!” Sometimes, her anger bubbles up molten red hot, acid tears that carve tracks down the valleys of her face. In those moments she screams in horror as she succumbs to her emotions and murders her own children.
“They stand there in black suits and talk about me like I am an uncontrollable child. They pity me. They despise me because I cannot be harnessed. Though their lips speak of change, of hope for a future, they continue to feed me toxic medicine. They weaken me, yet they turn to my skies and weep when I am no longer strong enough to protect them from the enemy outside. They suffer with cancer. I take the full force. My death is slow and painful.” Though her words echo in the sky like thunder, no one hears them.
The sun snickers in her face as she dances around him, a deal made long ago to protect her children from the harsh winters. Sometimes, the moon hides his solemn face completely, embarrassed to share in her company. She received the greatest gift and the greatest punishment simultaneously when she welcomed with open arms the stay of humans. “My seas will continue to crash on the shores, I’ll sing lullabies to you through the oak trees at twilight, I’ll adorn my skies with jewellery only to hope that you may remember me, that you may remember how much you’re hurting me and slaughtering me even. Your gunshots set my heart out of rhythm, your chemicals haunt me.”
One day, her tears will cease to flow, her anger will cease to burn and the love she has for her children will become insignificant compared to her dying hope. On that day she will take her last breath and as she disappears from existence completely, so will the entire human race.
Earth is strong but everyone needs some support sometimes… Are her needs really worth forgetting about?