Hiraeth
Orlando, FL
2019, Senior, Creative Writing
“Tie! Again!”
James shook his head in amusement as he watched his young granddaughter shriek with delight. “You wanna be the X’s this time and I’ll be the O’s?”
“Grandpa, it won’t make a difference. I’m ahead by seven-and-a-half whole points!” The girl’s lips curving proudly upwards reminded James of waves reaching for the sun’s rays. He absently glanced out the window, blue filling the frame, and frowned.
He put on a fake smile and continued, “Seven-and-a-half? Well, now, how on earth do you figure that?”
“See? Those are our scores. A tie counts for a half of a point, ‘cause we’re splitting the win!” She used her small fingers to jab importantly at the numbers she’d written in the corner.
“That’s very good, Annalise. Maybe you should study math in… well, you’re very bright, sweetheart.”
“What were you gonna say, Grandpa? You do that a lot.”
“Do what, kiddo?”
“Stop saying what you were going to and switch to saying something else.”
“Not just good with numbers, eh, Miss Annalise?”
“Good with everything!” The young girl smiled up at him, one of her front teeth missing. The man tickled his granddaughter and she laughed.
“That’s what you get for being smarter than me,” he tickled.
She giggled shyly, smile smattered bright across her face. “You didn’t answer the question.”
“And I’m not gonna,” he teased.
“No! Tell me!” she begged, late afternoon sun streaming in from the nearby window turning her cheek into a square of light, her freckles standing out like flecks of sand, or darkly lit stars.
“Pass the mashed potatoes, will you, Ean?” Small hands gripped a chipped porcelain bowl, then larger, more weathered ones, and silence regained its blanket over the table.
Two bulbs lit the cramped dining room from overhead, three generations seated below for the evening meal. James, being the eldest, sat at the head of the table. His adult daughter, Rose, was on one side with her own daughter Annalise, while her twin boys were on the other side. Maxwell, Rose’s husband, sat at the other end of the table.
“Mom, why does Emmett have less vegetables than me?” Ean complained, trying to shift some of his broccoli onto his brother’s plate. Emmett protectively cupped the sides of his plate, looking pleadingly at his mother.
“Boys,” said their father, “you’re very lucky to have that nutrition—lots of little boys don’t have a garden chamber to get tasty broccoli.”
“We aren’t little!”
“Well, you won’t grow anymore unless you eat lots of vegetables.” The kids traded disgusted looks with their tongues out, but ate as they were told.
Annalise, picking over her own vegetables, interrupted the shared silence. “Grandpa, tell us about Grandma!” Rose gave her daughter a warning look, but she ignored it, opting instead to face James. “You said you would tell us when we’re older, and look—we’re older now.”
James chuckled. “That was last week, squirt.”
Maxwell said, “It’s okay, Dad.”
“Yeah? Okay, well, it was a calm breezy spring day back in 2019…”
“Whoa! That was like…” Ean tried to count on potato-covered fingers.
“Sixty years ago,” Maxwell finished for his son. “Let’s not interrupt, Ean.”
“Yeah, Ean!” parroted his twin brother, Emmett.
“Keep going, Grandpa,” Annalise smiled on the edge of her seat.
“Well, back then, boys and girls would go on dates when they liked each other, to see if they were a good fit,” the old man smiled wistfully.
“They didn’t have a set matching program, the way your dad and I met,” Rose explained to her kids as she lovingly squeezed her husband’s hand. Maxwell squeezed hers back.
“Your Grandma and I went on one of these dates. I went to her house on my motorcycle. It was brand-new. I was so proud and puffed-up, showing it off everywhere I went.”
Annalise gave him a puzzled look. “What’s a motorcycle, Grandpa?”
“It’s kind of like a mix between a car and a bicycle, baby,” Rose explained. James nodded in affirmation.
“A motorcycle’s got two wheels like a bike but runs on a motor, like a car. I didn’t know back then, but the fumes it released into the atmosphere—like carbon dioxide—really contributed to messing up the planet.”
He cleared his throat. “I go up to her door, and this big hulking man opens it up. He goes, ‘Who’re you?’ and I’m standing there, absolutely scared to death. I’ve always been a small guy.” James’s grandchildren listened intently as he built up the suspense, having long ago stopped eating.
“Luckily, before I could say anything, Emily comes out, pushing the guy aside like he’s nothing. She was in this perfect little blue dress, and I thought she was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen.” James’s eyes wandered, not really seeing anything as he let himself relive his youth. “She does this precious little giggle of hers and apologizes for her brother, and then we’re off, racing through the streets.”
“Streets…?” Emmett echoed in confusion.
“Back in land times, roads were entire pathways made of stone for easy travel. Unfortunately, lots of people used them to go everywhere, so that polluted the air a lot. We didn’t really know, though, so we used them to go to the movies that night.”
“Movies were like moving pictures, right?” Annalise asked.
“Like a book that comes to life!” Ean said.
“Just like that,” James confirmed. “I remember your Grandma ordered everything they had behind the counter at the concession stand. Popcorn, candy, soda—the whole shebang! Then there was this scary part in the movie. When the monster attacked, I got so scared that I spilled soda all over her!”
Laughs and giggles circled around the table.
“What happened next?” Emmett prompted.
“Grandma was soaked in 40 ounces of syrupy Coke. Coke’s like this really sweet drink that you used to be able to get nearly anywhere in the world.”
“What’d it taste like?”
“It kind of stings a little bit, but in a good way. It’s all fizzy and bubbly and burns your nose.”
“That sounds awful,” grimaced Annalise.
“Oh no, it was wonderful. Smelled like vanilla and caramel.” James kept going. “Anyhow, Grandma was none too happy with yours truly, and I was trying to get back in her good graces, so after she did her best to clean up the mess, I gave her my varsity letterman jacket to wear. That’s what you got when you made one of the school’s leading sports teams. She was drowning in it, her shoulders were so slight, but she refused to give it back even after I took her home.”
“Weren’t you mad she stole your jacket?” Ean asked, befuddled.
James smiled softly, a faraway look on his face. “Nope,” he said simply.
“Did Grandma wanna go home after that?”
“I was surprised she didn’t. We skipped the rest of the movie and went straight to the arcade for games and pizza. Pizza used to one of the most popular foods around—it’s a circle of savory dough covered in cheese and all kinds of toppings, cut into triangles and delivered to your house in a square box. The arcade was a place where there a ton of fun games to play, lots of ‘em with digital screens.”
The boys perked up like flowers newly watered.
“Your mom actually got to visit one of the last ones when she was your age.” James looked at Rose, who pursed her lips and glanced at her twins.
“Can we go to one?” Ean and Emmett beamed in unison. “I want to try pizza!”
James frowned. “They’re not really… around in this area anymore, guys. But maybe we can build our own versions of some of the games. Would you like that? As for pizza, there are no more cows, since livestock put so much methane into the air—remember your lessons about melting ice caps? Because of that, cheese is hard to come by, but maybe we can figure out a fun new version of pizza, too.”
The boys drooped at first, then jumped at the offer, chiming, “Sure!”
“We can start after dinner. Your grandma’s favorite game was air hockey—a game where you hit a puck back and forth across a board for the other’s goal—and we spent the rest of our time at the arcade, playing hockey, skee ball, and Galaga. As for pizza, Grandma liked mushroom and pineapple, but I kept it simple—plain cheese. She got me to try new things all the time.”
“Who won more games?” Annalise asked curiously, throwing a mischievous look around the table. “We were playing tic-tac-toe earlier. Grandpa’s so bad at games, I can’t imagine he did!”
James let out a laugh, putting his finger to his lips. “No one needs to ever know.”
“Mom won more than he did,” Rose whispered loudly. “But let him pretend he did.” Her children giggled, and Maxwell smiled at his family.
“What happened next?” Ean prompted.
James blinked. “After that, we decided to take a walk in the park. They had all these little lights up in the oak trees… oaks were all over my hometown, and they helped a lot with the air. The lights hung up in them were so beautiful, like the stars had come down to Earth for a night. Emily tugged me towards them. I followed. I would have followed her anywhere.”
“Ew, what about cooties, Grandpa?” Ean flung a pea at Annalise.
“It’s romantic,” she glared at him. “Go on, Grandpa.”
“We held hands the whole time, walking slow, and when we got to the center of the park, there was this huge tree there. The king tree, I guess. I carved our names into the bark with my pocket knife… when I showed it to her, she lit up, still soaked with Coca-Cola and wearing my letterman jacket, but to me, she’d never looked more perfect.”
James looked at his rapt family and felt his eyes suddenly well up, emotion flooding his features. He put his head in his hands, trying to hold back the tears, but they spilled over defiantly. The sobs were heavy and painful, drawn up from somewhere deep within the man’s soul, and while Ean and Emmett asked what was wrong, and Rose and Maxwell hovered over James, Annalise ventured a soft question into the charged air, “Grandpa, are you crying because you miss Grandma?”
James wiped his salty tears away, “No, honey. Grandma is always with me in here, and in here.” He tapped his head and his heart as he spoke. “I’m crying because… because I have to explain so many things to you that you should live through yourself.”
Maxwell helped James up from his seat and walked him back to his room while Rose comforted the kids. Once they were out of earshot, Maxwell patted James on the back and asked, “Dad, what’s going on?”
“It’s not fair, Max. Your babies are never going to know what finding love in a safe world is like. They’ll never stroll in a park or watch a movie next to their best friend. They’re never going get their driver’s license or go to prom or apply to college… I just …” James hung his head to cry, but Maxwell met him in an embrace.
“Hiraeth,” he whispered softly.
James asked, “What’s that mean?”
“It’s a Welsh word. My parents used to say it when the waters first rose. It means being homesick for a place you can’t go back to.” They held onto each other and cried.
Annalise watched as her dad and granddad sobbed in the hallway in mourning for her lost childhood. She stared only a moment before she sat down at the kitchen table with some chalk and old cardboard, starting to make an air hockey table for her brothers. “I’ll teach ‘em how to play, Grandma,” she whispered.
Reflection
Reflection
I think, nearly more than anything else, I’m scared of climate change. I’m scared that the environment, with all the magnificent plants and animals that I grew up with, may never recover from its greatness illness: humans. I’m terrified that all of that normalcy will one day be gone, and I’ll have to explain to my own grandchildren things that they ought to be able to experience for themselves. I do what I can in my personal life to help the environment but real change will only happen when everyone comes together to fight for what Earth we have left. This will only happen when our society lets go of old disputes over money and identity politics and realizes that saving our world must take priority. Earth is our only home in this vast universe—without it, there’s no place to spend all the greedy money and nowhere to argue over shiny new legislation. I wrote my story to express a possible future if things keep going the way they are. Just like for my main character James, explaining simple things to your family that they should have been able to live through themselves may one day be commonplace. Having everything you thought you’d be able to do ripped away from you and witnessing your home consumed by nature—those are things that ought to remain figments of the imagination. However, people around the world need to wake up and work together to prevent them from becoming our reality.