Katie Chen
McKinney, TX
2016, Senior, Creative Writing

I remember nothing but the heat and pressure as my longtime friends, Oxygen, Hydrogen and Carbon Dioxide were forcibly separated from me. I suppose they were released back into the atmosphere, where we once happily drifted about without a care in the world, for that is the only place elements such as ourselves could go. I remember the loneliness of the dark, the seemingly endless electric current as I awaited my turn to be released back to freedom. But when my world finally became light again, I could no longer drift about as I had once before. Instead, I was condemned to serve as an element of the earth; anhydrous ammonia, otherwise known as synthetic fertilizer.

As the weeks passed, I became accustomed to this new existence as fertilizer. I brought life to the plants around me, making them flourish in ways they could never have done without me; they grew rapidly, their fruits more luscious and succulent than that of any other. I gave the farmers who planted me there the higher yields than they had seen in previous seasons. I fed much of the human world, from their fruits to their meats to their favorite snacks and candies. For a time all seemed well, and as the birdsong of spring transformed into the summer buzz of insects, the crops grew greener, their blossoms changing into a bounty of fruits and seeds. This newfound peace, however, would not last. There came the fateful day of harvest, when all of the toil of the past two seasons came down into heavy machinery. I watched as the fruits of summer were scythed and sorted by strange metal claws. In the space of a few days, nothing was left except the now-brown fields of dust and dirt, waiting for the next spring planting.

Well, not exactly nothing. I remained, the remnant of a spring and summer of life-giving to a once-bountiful and vibrant ecosystem. Now, as the bitter cold of winter set in, I waited once more, this time for the snow to melt and begin the cycle of life-giving again.

I never got the chance.

As the warmth of spring began to loosen winter’s grip on the earth, I found myself drifting along in the snowmelt, unable to resist the flow of the current that was dragging me down, bringing me towards a nearby stream. For days, I traversed along the current of the stream until it brought me towards yet a bigger channel. I saw fish darting in and out between the rocks of the riverbed. I saw moss growing near the banks of the river as the water grew warmer downstream. Soon, larger life forms began to emerge from dormancy as freshwater turtles and snakes began to travel across the river.

It seemed, to me at least, that this journey of traveling through the river channels to no destination in particular would last forever. What was in reality only a few months felt like an eternity of nothing but the flow of the water. Hydrogen and Oxygen, now bonded with each other, refused to speak to me. I didn’t understand why, until one day I looked around and saw that they were turning green with toxin-producing algae in my presence. Suddenly unable to look at my old friends directly, I continued on my way, alone and forgotten.

Although not entirely forgotten. The algae was always there, shadowing me, using me to grow and thrive and swell to unprecedented levels. H2O, angered with me, drove the current faster, in an attempt to drive me out of their system. By the end of that summer, I found myself drifting along a delta.

Here H2O spread out and quieted. Life in general was quiet. The grass grew green, the marshes alive with insects and birds. I stayed there for months, continuing my march to nowhere in particular along small channels carved out by various animals. With me, the algae bloomed to levels so great, they suffocated almost all the other living creatures. When the water turned into a thick green slush, much to the displeasure of Hydrogen and Oxygen, I decided to move on.

To my surprise, the further I traveled, the denser the water became. Soon reeds transformed into mangroves, freshwater turtles and snakes into strange fish I had never encountered before. I would later learn that I was entering the great and vast sea, one in which I had seen in my younger days as a drifter in the atmosphere, but never imagined entering. Days passed, and the water grew colder, wilder. These were the cousins of Oxygen and Hydrogen; not just H2O, but NaCl. Together they were vast and wild and alive.

I wondered, with my past record as both a life-giver and a destroyer, what would happen upon my likely unwelcome entrance into this new and strange world. Quietly, I entered, without any notice from H2O and NaCl. I joined a cold, unforgiving current. I slipped into the systems of the fish and ocean life. I gave nutrients to the bacteria, allowing them to produce toxins that at first made sea life sick, and later caused life to die out altogether. I leeched the color out of the coral, turning them white and lifeless, with the exception of the few fish left to fight over the little spoils left from death and destruction.

To be fair, I never knew I could cause such a catastrophe. In fact, much of my journey across the ocean was spent continuing the mission I was meant for; giving life to plants, letting them flourish; growing them bigger and better, their fruits more ample than before. In turn, I was the destruction of my own purpose; I fed the cyanobacteria, who fed the phytoplankton. With me they multiplied. With me they grew vast.

Soon there was no more sunlight. The algae, much like an umbrella, covered the surface, leaving everything underneath in darkness; what little light that could penetrate through the thick carpet of salty green soup was not enough to sustain the ecosystem that once existed. Seaweed released their grip on the rocks and drifted away, dead. Mollusks withered away. Fish swam to safety.
I watched as Oxygen was voraciously consumed by the phytoplankton I had helped grow. Those creatures that had chosen to stay suffocated without her. This part of the living ocean became an abyss of simply nothing; not a single living organism could survive. Not a single living organism could come back to life. The only thing that remained were the rocks, the sand and the darkness. Always the darkness. This was a dead zone.

I had long since withdrawn from the human world. From the day that I left the processing plant as anhydrous ammonia, I became lost in a world where there was nothing but me and death and destruction. At the stream, I left behind three-legged frogs and diseased fish. At the river I left behind green, contaminated water. At the delta I left behind dirty, brackish water that infected the mangrove trees and the ecosystem that depended on them. And at sea, I left nothing. I took everything; the fish, the mollusks, the coral. And I gave nothing in return but the algae.

This is what happens with fertilizer runoff.

I am not the only contributor. Phosphorous, who I had encountered briefly on my travels, became my constant companion upon entering the dead zone. Then there is also the crowd from sewage and industrial runoff, who are too many to name; all of them toxic and lead to the hypoxia which in turn causes dead zones much like mine and Phosphorus’s.

The humans who first put us there couldn’t have known what havoc we could wreak on the environment. Will they ever know, and accept that elements like me were never meant to bend to their will? And if they do, will it be too late to act? Would the ocean, once alive and teeming with unknown and beautiful species, simply be a vast and endless dead zone by the time mankind woke up from their stupor, and realize that something has gone amiss?

It doesn’t have to be like this.

A little push towards reducing sewage runoff and industrial emission can help reverse these dead zones. Shifting from commercial agriculture to localized, organic farming can help reduce fertilizer runoff. Efforts to clean the water also helps preserve marine life and rid the water of culprits such as myself.

I was never meant to be taken from the atmosphere and synthesized into ammonia to fertilize earthlings. I was meant to drift about in the atmosphere, interacting with Oxygen and Hydrogen, giving life from a distance. I should never have ended up drifting in the sea as I did. If mankind can recognize this, there will still be hope for the future. Policies can always change. However if I am left ignored, I have no choice but to continue my path into a future of nothingness.
…

My name is Nitrogen. This is my story. What will yours be?

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Life of N