Earth's Last Dream

• Rebecca Lynch, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2013

Thunder boomed as the harsh wet cold rain hammered the dead ground under my feet. Squinting I stared up at the dark sky, flashes of lighting constantly striking the ground, as if the gods were trying to revive the dead earth. I started walking back towards one of the only rundown cities left in Australia after the world died because the world leaders put more importance on money and other issues rather than the earth. I don’t know how the world looked before it shut down, like a house that had not paid its bills, or so my mum said, I was born during the calm after the chaos.

15 years ago the world ‘ended’. Mum told me that humanity had known it was coming but did nothing about it, instead focussing on ‘more pressing’ issues. Those issues held no value in the chaos that was unleashed by mother earth deciding to give up on the human race. Cities burned, countries fell, leadership failed. Humanity failed the test of life.

It was 2 years after the chaos that destroyed majority of the human race, that I was born. Mum told me that I was lucky I had not been born deformed like others because of the lessening oxygen levels. She said that I would grow up to be a big and strong girl. It made me wonder when she said stuff like that. I wonder if the other kids will grow up to be big and strong. It makes me wonder if the oxygen levels will ever rise again and let us live to see the future. Mum told me about the ‘test of life’ as my teacher called it. She said that for thousands of years the human race had survived and her generation failed to keep the world alive like the previous civilizations had. My teacher said that it was because the technology evolved. But it makes me wonder. Their civilizations’ technology did not kill the earth so why did ours. I sneezed and glanced up. The harsh, cold rain was my only company. What was I supposed to do. Everyone said it was up to our generation to correct the mistakes of the previous generation. But, why? How?

I asked mum once, why it rains when the rest of the earth is dead. She told me that the gods were crying and trying to bring it back, but so far it wasn't working. I looked up at the sky. I wonder if I could go up there and help them fix the earth. That way mummy and the others would come back. They said I was the hope for the future. But if the gods wanted the earth back, and made it better, did they need the hope that I had? Or would the earth remain dead. Mummy once said that it was our price to pay for taking advantage of our planet. She said it was our own fault. Was she right?