Once Upon A Time: A Global Perspective

The short story in this post is part of a community program my writers group organized. Several of us, including me, wrote, workshopped and read pieces that featured different aspects of climate change and global warming. We made a video and uploaded it to youtube. It’s titled - - A Global Perspective. The link to the program is at the end of the post.

Both climate change and global warming are and will continue to affect us human beings and all other life on planet Earth, so, it’s important to have a basic understanding of the difference between those two terms. Here’s one I found from the National Geographic Society:

Global warming refers to Earth's rising average temperature, while climate change refers to changes in weather patterns and growing seasons around the world.

According to the United Nations, both these conditions will result in: 

Hotter temperatures
More severe storms
Increased drought
A warming, rising ocean
Loss of species
Not enough food
More health risks
Poverty and displacement

This was the motivation for Journey Writers, my writers group, to do the program. Now, here’s “Once Upon A Time,” the short story I wrote (note – the line about Los Angeles? I wrote that in 2022!).

Once Upon A Time
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It’s a dark and stormy night. That’s a cliché, but it’s true. All our nights have been dark and stormy for the past 48 years and 25 days. I keep count. It’s funny, or it would be if it weren’t so sad. You know, when I was a kid, I’d ask, “Why is the sky blue, Mommy?” Now my grandchildren ask, “What is blue sky, Nana?” 

Humph! I remember lying on my back on the grass peering up and wondering how far the sky went and if heaven was behind it. My grandchildren have never seen blue sky and never will. We’ve lived underground since The Great Warming. All of us, well that is, except folks with money. They took off in their rocket ships. Now they circle the planet in seven huge space stations, one for each continent. Every day they look down and see what’s left of the Earth they’ve left behind. 

When we look up the shafts to the surface all we can see is lightening, dark clouds and rain. No one has lived topside in 48 years. To go out now is certain death with all the toxins and poisons flying around out there. Sure, the techs go outside but they have to wear lifesuits. They go out to check the seals on the windows. Well, they’re not exactly windows; they’re more like the portholes you’d see on a cruise ship, way back then. They’re round and thick and they keep out the poisoned air. Used to be we didn’t even think about air. It was simply there to give us oxygen so we could live, work, play, love and create. Now the techs make it in the lab and circulate it through vents. It does the job, but it’s not the same.

We’re thankful for the rain, though. The folks in the reclamation center collect it, remove the toxins, purify it and recycle it for us. But it’s not the same. I remember catching raindrops on my tongue. They tasted sweet in summer and cold like ice in winter. 

Anyway, we have almost everything we need. The engineers designed systems to simulate day and night, produce food and handle sanitation. Those folks are all around self-trained geniuses, but it’s not the same. I miss the sun and the moon. I miss the seasons. I miss picking strawberries in June and pumpkins in October.

We got left behind when the rich folk went off planet. It didn’t matter if you were Black, brown, white, red or yellow. If you couldn’t afford a ticket on the big ships you got left behind. Period. When all was said and done, we had no choice but to bury our political hatchets, pull together and figure out what we needed to do to live. And we live pretty well down here. Our spaces are comfortable. What I love the most is that there’s not a right angle in the whole place. Turns out it’s pretty damn nigh impossible to dig tunnels with perfect right angles but I’ve always loved curves and arches so that part of living down here feeds my soul.

The Great Warming? Oh, right. That. It didn’t happen overnight. It was so gradual, folks just ignored the signs and the warnings. We had more fires. One of the biggest nearly burned the whole city of Los Angeles. The storms got worse, and ash from volcanic eruptions created dark clouds that covered the sky and hid the sun. Did we listen? No, we did not. 

The sea levels rose and whole islands disappeared. I really miss Hawaii. I used to love visiting my Uncle Ernie on Oahu. And it got harder to breathe when the frozen ground at the poles thawed and gave up all the nasty gases hiding down there. 

By the time folks woke up and demanded that our ‘do nothing gridlocked government’ do something, it was too late. The rich folks left and here we are, living underground hoping and praying that Mother Nature forgives us.

Oh! Would you look at the time! Gotta go. My son and daughter are on engineering duty so I’m watching my grands and they’ll be here any minute. Rosie, Darren and Gloria will bust in here all excited and ask for snacks. They actually like the synthmilk and the cookies I make from fauxflour. Can you imagine? The ‘faux’ stuff is okay but I miss real chocolate and real milk. 

Anyway, the kids will giggle, eat and drink and say to me, “Tell us a story, Nana. Please?” 

And I will. See, this life right here, right now is all they’ll ever know so I’ll tell them story after story about how things used to be, once upon a time.

The End?

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If you’d like to see the whole program featuring several of us, here’s the link to the YouTube video. 

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