And
Pembroke Pines, FL
2024, Junior, Creative Writing
The man walked down a long and winding road, nearly as old as he. And this was noteworthy only for the fact that the man had watched those who built the road and seen their forefathers and seen the beginning and only now did he fear the end. A thousand generations of suffering and love and life and happiness and error had left the man tired, and he saw what only one like him could see.
We return to our man and see him merely 5 generations into his world. He walks among the simplest of man, the simplest of beasts, and the oldest of the glaciers. He shudders in the cold, the oppressing frost of the ice chilling him to his core. It can’t get any worse than this, the man thinks. His thoughts are rapidly readjusted when he hears a roar from a bear of white, and runs as fast as he can away.
We see our man sitting in a city of marble recently enjoying the fruits of conquest and rapid modernization. A city with the finest engineers where the wealthy have heated floors and aqueducts bring water to all. The fruits of civilization are clear to all, and he enjoys the beauty and splendor. The man smiled happily. He walked down a long and winding road, newly paved.
Much later, our man sits in the office of an inventor, a man he respects and trusts. “Thomas,” says our man, “It’s not ready.” “It is,” says The Inventor tiredly. Our man sighs, the bags under his eyes visible, and rambles on, far into the night and until the first of sunlight shown in the sky, and he storms out of the building, furious at his compatriot.
Our man stands in front of a factory, watching as it hums away, powered by the engine he helped create. He regrets the fight that destroyed his relationship with his friend and resolves to visit him. He walks off to the office of that old friend, ignoring the smokestacks pouring black smoke into the air.
Our man reads a scientific paper written on the other side of the world by a man he will never meet. He scoffed at the mad ideas, some pseudoscientific ramble about “greenhouse gasses” and the warming of the planet. He alone knows the true extent of how important the factories and trains and such that keep the modern world churning along.
Our man stands in the city of Detroit, watching in amusement as a young inventor takes an “automobile” for a joyride down the city’s streets. When the inventor stops he flags him down. “What is it powered by?” he asks, bemused. “Gasoline!” Responds the chipper young fellow.
Plastic, petrochemicals, oil rigs, coal, and all things that fuel the modern world our man now enjoys. He looks among skyscrapers of cement, glass, materials formed by processes that pour noxious gas into a once pristine atmosphere.
Our man stands in a once lush forest, ruined by flame and ax and wrath of man. He wonders if the company that fueled this endeavor would continue if they saw the destruction he did. His doubt grows and grows.
Our man sits in a boat, filled with scientific minds on its way to a spot of the sea that seems arbitrary, reading a magazine about a hole in the ozone layer, and wipes some sweat off his brow. The autumn cold had left the man sooner than usual. And suddenly, the ship stops. Our man peeks over his magazine and immediately regrets it, his eyes and nostrils assaulted by the sight and smell of a giant patch of garbage.
Our man stands on the shore of a coastal city, on a street consumed by the sea. No simple flood, no mere tide change, but a process that happened gradually, slowly, and by the time it was noticed, it was ignored and dismissed by politicians too busy with satisfying the people who lobbied (bribed) them and doing whatever they wanted. For the man watched the development of a system designed to benefit those at the top in the short term, and would cause the life of the world to slip away.
He stands on ice, once as far as sight, and sees a flower. This symbol of beauty is seen by the man as a thing of pure horror. For if the ice has receded this far, what shall happen next?
Our man stares at the news of the past year with headlines like “Record Breaking Heat in Tallahassee, Record Breaking Heat In Canada, Record Breaking Heat In India”, and as he reads headlines like this for nearly an hour, a new pattern starts to emerge. “Heat Record Smashed for 6th Time in 2 Years” and “New Drinking Game, “Take a Shot Every Time A Heat Record is Broken”, Causes Liver Failure Worldwide” and “Record Breaking Heat Events No Longer Even Rare.”
Our man stands in a rally, filled with people claiming that all that he has seen is fake.
Our man once more stands on cracking ice, the chunk he stands on floating away from an ever shrinking land mass. He hears the cries of a white bear, much like the one he once ran from, the ice it lives on is nearly all gone.
Our tired old man walks down the long and winding road, seeking a place at its end. But as he walks, he cannot see the place he walks too. Instead, he sees the ocean, the old road leading into it. And as he thinks of the world he helped create, a world filled with waste and a burning world and a world scorched by the sin and wrath of man. A world where there will soon be more plastic than fish in the sea and our blood is filled with microplastics. The cars we use and the infrastructure that is built around them destroy the environment. And faced with a scorched and battered and bruised and burning and flooding world, he walks forth, into the sea.
Works Cited
https://open.spotify.com/track/2vzbU9nlpIMYxlt0FucOHi?si=64c8850800904ff5 Song &
Reflection
Reflection
My work was inspired by the song “&” by the indie rock band “Tally Hall”. I am interested in writing because I love reading and telling stories. I feel that a story is a way to share your deepest ideas and create a world in your mind to share with others. The feeling that writing rose in me was this sense of creativity brought about by listening to music which gave me ideas on what to write. My message to viewers of my artwork is that the man is you, and me, and everybody. The man represents humanity and how humans feel about climate change and how we experience it. The repetition of “and” may seem unusual at first, but it is intended to seem so at first, and eventually culminate in the description of all of the consequences in one list. After doing research on climate change I learned that we could have stopped this generations ago. We’ve known for so long and it is kind of terrifying how people just didn't care. Actions I will engage with in my community is working together to cut carbon emissions.