catnipoflife

Here it is nearly 4 AM and still unable to sleep. Itching, itching, itching from the severe case of poison oak is a nightmare! So, what do I do? I write. Brain will not shut down anyway. Thank you, Kellie, for this week’s Free Write Friday prompt.

Let’s leap into the future with a time & place scenario. 

The year: 2063

The place: An underground bunker

What’s going on?

The day is cold, the atmosphere grey. How I long to peer through an open window or walk outside to smell and feel the freshness of an early morn, wiggle my toes in the dew-dappled grass and quench my thirst with the cold water of a mountain stream. It was inevitable for such things once taken for granted to no longer be possible. Why? Why didn’t we listen, heed and make the necessary changes for a better life than the one now being experienced underground.

The soil of the earth is poisoned. Air is stagnant misty with the ashy residue from heat and continuous fires. Water is polluted and life as we once knew it has ceased to exist. Dawn’s songbird melodies are no longer heard nor crackling of rocks and leaves underfoot—the trees are no more. Gone are the critters, the chirps in the night and the nightingale’s song. So much death. So much destruction.

Sounds of machinery grind away from dawn ‘til dusk, metal upon metal inching along clearing debris that has yet to disintegrate. Step-by-step, inch-by-inch, pile-on-top-of-pile! The noisy motors never stop.

I somberly rub my palm across my stomach feeling the new life as tiny feet push within the lining of my belly. Hard to believe such a nightmare evolved only a few months ago. Dreams shattered. Plans obliterated. Appointments eliminated. Still within me is new life…L.I.F.E. But yet this life begs the question, what kind of life? What kind of future?

What, oh what, lies ahead for tomorrow?

Sounds of the elevator shaft bring attention full circle as its massive doors open into the bunker. Stepping through its doors is my husband, father of our child, grimy, dusty, dirty, smelling of charred earth holding in his hand a small tarnished pot of soil with a tiny seedling showing its face. Green. A speck of green. Color other than grey.

There is hope! H.O.P.E.

Check Out Other Contributions: I haven’t visited yet but will in the morrow! Good night and sweet dreams within what is left of the night. . .

Annie (@txstarkeeper) says: