A Mother’s Nightmare
Richardson, TX
2019, Senior, Creative Writing
It is every mother’s dream to see her children live a life kinder than her own, to see them discover success and love and happiness. Every mother wants to leave the world knowing her daughter or son will thrive because of the sacrifices she made. It is every mother’s nightmare, however, to see her kids endure struggles worse than her own, to see them feel pain and anguish that even she cannot relieve.
It is this fear, the fear of leaving her child behind in a world far crueler than the one she grew up in, that causes Rosa Mariana’s dying heart to ache as she holds her daughter’s hand in the dreary hospital room. All her life, Rosa valued being a mother the most. That is why it pains her so that she failed to do the one thing that mattered. She failed to provide her daughter, Esperanza, with a good life.
Esperanza has always been thankful for her mother, but Rosa is not blind to the precocious lines on her daughter’s face, the unmistakable tired corners of her eyes, and the smile that fades when she thinks her mother is not watching.
When Rosa birthed her daughter 27 long years ago, she imagined her child’s life would be full of laughter and joy. A good life, a life better than her own.
Now, after nearly three decades played out and the world taking a sharp turn for the worse, Rosa lays in the infirmary bed, wishing she could trade her own life for her daughter’s. Wishing Esperanza did not have to deal with the perilous conditions of today’s world. Wishing that Rosa’s generation could reverse the issues they failed to address in their youth, when the planet seemed to be an endless supply of energy and money and food.
Rosa remembers those days, when the government claimed climate change was merely a myth spread to push political agendas, when billion-dollar companies cared more about money than their planet, when humans said now was the time to incite change but failed to act on their words.
Alas, the past is cast in stone and the damage is done—past repair.
It began as rain, and at first, seemingly harmless. Rosa recalls the first year—it poured with little relief for weeks. At this time, Rosa still lived near the coast, in New York City. She dredges blurry memories from her past, of dreary skies juxtaposed against the bright lights of Times Square.
Among the big screens flashed headlines featuring frantic scientists who claimed Earth’s water cycles were intensifying.[1] They read their studies and their reports to anyone who listened, preaching that increased temperatures brought increased evaporation and, in turn, torrential rain.
Many people didn’t listen in time, and those who did failed to do anything monumental, including Rosa. As she recollects these years, when the fate of the planet was teeter-tottering on a fine line of no return, Rosa feels an immense surge of self-disdain. She curses her younger self, who foolishly believed that several retweets about global emission statistics would actually alter Earth’s path toward doom and destruction.
Rosa’s daughter once referred to Rosa and her fellow passive advocates, the ones who shrugged off any sort of blame because they had tried to catalyze change, as “slacktivists.” Rosa smiles faintly at the thought. No matter the weather, she can count on Esperanza to remain witty.
Some corporations eventually promised the future implementation of sustainable practices, but it was too little, too late. Rosa figures if the CEOs of the world had realized they couldn’t fill their coffers if their customers were dying off, they would have made a real effort.
Rosa manages a wry laugh, warranting a concerned glance from her daughter. Their money can’t save them now, she thinks ruefully. Either they’re dead, dying, or desperate, just like the rest of us.
As Rosa relapses into quiet rumination of the past, she closes her eyes and remembers the flood that ensued the rain.
The flooding had sparked real fear inside Rosa. That first year, the entire subway system closed for three weeks, crippling the city. Feet of standing water heeded pedestrians and forced the homeless to seek shelter indoors. The streets smelled like sewage and dead fish, and thousands of cars were destroyed. Even the military bases became inoperable.[2]
After a year, Rosa and her boyfriend, Adam, saved enough money to move further inland. They were lucky they moved when they did, because the rains grew in intensity, quickly transforming into dangerous, windy thunderstorms, leaving neighborhoods powerless in their wake.
Still, the northeastern coast was luckier than the hurricane-ridden southeastern coast and the tsunami-stricken western coast. Disaster relief was spread thin throughout the nation, and the epidemic of natural destruction was soon on the verge of becoming an apocalypse of catastrophic proportions.
After hopping through the cities, Rosa and Adam settled in St. Louis, Missouri. The change was drastic: rather than relentless rain, they faced endless droughts.
Adam explained to her it was because they made it out of the storm tracks; she wasn’t as well-versed as him in meteorology. Her boyfriend had dreamt of being a weatherman since he was a young boy, and despite the increasingly extreme weather, he would watch Channel 5 (when the TVs still worked) every morning with awe. This sentiment slowly evolved into wary admiration, and, as the skies continued to bring carnage and decimation, eventually fear.
The next couple of months, Rosa missed New York City, even despite the rain, soggy shoes, and ruined umbrellas. In the Big Apple, water was in abundance. At her new home, Rosa dealt with parched mouths and cracked lips. She carried a tub of petroleum jelly with her everywhere, a commodity that quickly became sparse and lucrative.
She and Adam hardly had it bad, though. Texas was another story. The grass in the Lone Star State disappeared, fissures cleaved the ground, and pressure grew on the remaining groundwater supplies.[3] Heat waves surged in prevalence, duration, and intensity.
Farmers, construction workers, and mailmen alike fell prey to heat stroke. Dogs and cats left outside died of dehydration. The crop failure was bad, of course, but the dust storms were even worse. After the third major dust storm, America faced a mass migration soon known as the Southwest Exodus.
New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California faced similar problems, except these states, less humid than Texas, bred massive wildfires. Those who didn’t die grabbed their things and fled—even the firefighters.
The Midwest, where Rosa and Adam lived, was initially mild in comparison to the coasts, the South, and the North (where relentless snowstorms and hail storms persisted—Adam’s cousin in Washington died from a six-inch ball of ice).
But about three years after the rains began in New York, an alarming rate of tornados brewed from conducive temperatures, tearing through America, tearing through her home.
The tornado that destroyed their small home whisked Adam away from Rosa, and she never saw him again. At the painful memory of uprooted trees and the wailing wind, a tear slips from Rosa’s eye.
That was also the day Rosa realized she was pregnant. Although it was a day of mourning for the man she loved, she held onto a newfound sliver of happiness: her child. A child she would protect by any means and sought to provide a life full of joy.
Nearly 30 years ago, when Rosa looked into her newborn daughter’s eyes, she named her Esperanza, the Spanish translation for hope—because that’s what she felt when she held her baby in her arms for the first time. Rosa remembers that overwhelming sense of optimism, the conviction that everything was going to end up all right.
As she holds her daughter’s sad gaze in the present, Rosa wonders where that fleeting sense of hope went. She doesn’t feel such a sentiment anymore. She knows Esperanza doesn’t. No, that feeling hasn’t touched their lives in a long time.
Throughout Esperanza’s lifetime, weather conditions worsened, rising temperatures exacerbated the spread of disease (malaria wiped out Africa[4] before decimating south Asia), and economies plummeted worldwide. Sadly, worse pursued: worldwide governments deteriorated (Congress declared martial law ten years ago), communication between countries diminished, major ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica collapsed,[5] the ocean level continued to rise, and rushing water swallowed thousands of coastal cities worldwide[6]—including Rosa’s home, New York City.
She imagines the city underwater, like an urban Atlantis. Colorful fish and crabs and turtles parading underwater Times Square, weaving through skyscrapers, settling in taxi cabs. But Rosa knows this vision is simply a fantasy. Marine life is far worse off than the human race; it already bore the negative effects of global warming prior to the torrential rains.
In her youth, Rosa fantasized about becoming a marine biologist. Somewhere along the line, her dreams faded and her interest was drawn elsewhere, but nonetheless her heart aches for the lives of the ocean animals decimated by mankind’s destruction. Truly innocent animals met their perilous fate because of the foolishness of the human race.
The aquatic food web, now in shambles, was a sensitive structure that balanced on survival of basic marine life. Rosa recalls reading a book about ocean acidification, which occurred due to CO2 emissions, reducing the growth and survival rate of calcareous species like coral, shellfish, and plankton.[7] The decrease in number of these animals sent the food web off kilter, causing a disastrous chain of events that devastated many species.
Rosa figures that her favorite animal, the spinner dolphin, has quickly become an endangered species. She wouldn’t be surprised if they were extinct by the turn of the decade. Such a depressing thought elicits a sad sigh from Rosa, and in turn a troubled look from her daughter.
Sadly, more destruction of marine life ensued: natural disasters destroyed ships and rigs, which spilled tons of oil into the ocean; rising temperatures ruined the travel patterns of migratory species; and flooded cities leaked toxins and chemicals into the already desolate ecosystems.
A wave of exhaustion suddenly hits Rosa, and her vision turns spotty. As her droopy eyes flutter, she decides that hope is simply an artifact of the world that once was, a foreign sentiment now extinct and obsolete.
Rosa’s eyes close one last time as her hand slips out of her daughter’s. Rosa wants to feel happy that her struggle is ending, but as a mother, she only feels shame.
The words are on her lips—I’m sorry—but Rosa’s heart stops before the apology is spoken.
Esperanza bows her head in acceptance, then suddenly snaps her head up as the window rattles, a sign of an imminent dust storm. Or perhaps it will prove to be a tornado—no one longer keeps track.
Esperanza collects her worn-out sack and jug of sandy water before kissing her mother on the forehead. She slips on a pair of cracked sunglasses and fixes a faded scarf over her nose and mouth. She looks at her mother one last time before heading back to the bunker.
It would be a sad sight to witness if anyone cared to watch. You see, that’s the problem with the human race: they stopped caring many, many years ago.
Bibliography
[1] NASA, NASA, pmm.nasa.gov/resources/faq/how-does-climate-change-affect-precipitation, p. 1.
[2] “Global Warming Impacts.” Union of Concerned Scientists, www.ucsusa.org/our-work/global-warming/science-and-impacts/global-warming-impacts, p. 5.
[3] “Global Warming Impacts.” Union of Concerned Scientists, www.ucsusa.org/our-work/global-warming/science-and-impacts/global-warming-impacts, p.13.
[4] “How Climate Change Is Exacerbating the Spread of Disease.” State of the Planet, 10 Dec. 2014, blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2014/09/04/how-climate-change-is-exacerbating-the-spread-of-disease/, p. 11.
[5] “Predictions of Future Global Climate.” Predictions of Future Global Climate | UCAR Center for Science Education, scied.ucar.edu/longcontent/predictions-future-global-climate, p. 14.
[6] Here’s How Rising Seas Could Swallow up These Coastal Cities.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/here-s-how-rising-seas-could-swallow-these-coastal-cities-ncna872466, p. 6.
[7] “The Ocean and Climate Change.” IUCN, 6 May 2019, www.iucn.org/resources/issues-briefs/ocean-and-climate-change, p. 4.
Reflection
Reflection
I entered this contest knowing I wished to write a piece of fiction. At first, I was stumped at which perspective to write from and how to implement the idea of the future into my story. I soon had the realization that generations were the perfect example of moving through time, and if I wrote about someone from my generation as an adult, it would tie in the relevancy of the issue of global warming while propelling the topic into the future. Next, I decided which emotions to play. I usually write with a very sophisticated and neutral tone, so I tried to implement feelings into my writing—something quite unnatural for me. I had thought, how better to make a piece of writing emotional than doing it as someone dying from old age? From there, I knew it shouldn’t have a happy ending, but rather a sense of failure and shame. Because the truth is, if we don’t actually do anything about today’s issues, including climate change, we are going to the leave the world in horrible shape for our children. There will be no happy ending for them. I learned from writing this that in order to change the course of our world, we must all give up something. Reducing fossil fuel emissions and adopting sustainable habits are hardly efficient, cheap, or easy. It’s going to come at an expense, and the benefits are that the human race stays alive, even if it’s protecting our population generations from us. It’s an investment that we most likely will not see paid off. Now that I understand the futility of today’s “slacktivists,” I will actually invest in organizations that work to protect our Earth, as well as push for proper legislation that combats climate change.