If Only
Bala Cynwyd, PA
2019, Junior, Creative Writing
The outline of the propaganda poster is fuzzy in the dim lighting the government provides. I rip it off, and it crushes easily in my palm, like Earth did. I don’t bother reading it.
Grandma used to comfort me, but now I sit on her chair, alone. I got an eviction notice for our 140-square-feet dwelling; it was allocated for double occupancy, and I no longer qualify. My bags are empty. All I own is a factory jumpsuit, pair of jeans, and t-shirt. “You don’t need anything more to live a fulfilling life!” the government screams with a smile.
For years, I thought my life was what generations before had. Seven hours at the factory and three at school. Rationing everything. The hand-me-downs, once-a-week-showers. Eating algae because it’s all that grows in our toxic waters, and we still have a famine. Never having enough.
Grandma used to talk of life before the Underground. She spoke of the sun: “A yellow sphere, as beautiful as…” Every time she used a different approximation, but there was nothing comparable I knew. Nothing down here was beautiful, other than her nostalgic smile.
She talked of money to buy whatever you wanted, instead of being told by the government. “Our presidents were elected. We complained about all the problems and corruption, but it doesn’t even come close to now.”
Grandma said back then everyone knew about climate change. “There were once-a-century storms[1] and broken temperature records year after year.”[2]
“But we only started to pay attention when living conditions worsened while expenses skyrocketed. It rippled through the economy.”[3]
“Sea level rise forced everyone to flock to higher land, but resources were lessening. Produce was scarce, diseases were rampant, refugees were many. People became desperate. Protests broke out against the government, who accepted bribes to support their own interests, and it got bloody. It was then when the government decided to go underground, to make things easier to control.”
I want to ask her more, about when life was happy. I want to remember with her. I instinctively call out, “Grandma!” before remembering she’s gone.
No, I can’t stay here. I take off hastily and slam the door, leaving all memories behind. I take only a hair clip Grandma hid so her family wouldn’t sell it; it was her memento of her old life, and now it is mine.
“For the ones that are gone! For the ones that are now! For the ones that are the future!” The chant rings through the room. We call ourselves the Remembrance. It sounds like the action movies Grandma talked of. We want to remember the injustices and what life is and what it used to be. We remember the stories, the deaths. We remember who did this. The planet remembers.
More importantly, we want everyone to remember that their actions lead to consequences.
The Remembrance doesn’t have solutions. We aren’t here to fix the planet. We just show those who hurt us how it feels.
We gather in abandoned shacks and factories, careful to only let the trusted know. We rise up the ranks by committing crimes against the government: the worse, the bloodier, the better. It seems cruel, but what comes around goes around.
I joined when I was 15. Grandma never knew; she wouldn’t approve.
Rallies are full of stories, like Sister Maria who vanished after saying “climate change.”
“Is this what we want?” the guy on the podium, Axel, shouts.
“No!” The cries come together, overlapping. My screams are louder today, fueled by Grandma’s death. It will not be in vain.
“Jett!” Axel calls out to me. “Tell them what happened!” How does he know?
Eyes turn to me like blinding spotlights. Shakily, I walk over. “My grandmother died from chronic kidney disease. She worked too long in the heat without water.[4] Does the government care?” I pause. “No! They care only about themselves! As long as their bellies are fed… They! Don’t! Care!”
Cries erupt as I walk offstage. “Jett! Jett!” they chant. Their admiration gives me a rush. I feel powerful, influential. I wave, pretending to care about them. Axel approves.
In the following weeks I give speech after speech, repeating my mantra over and over, telling them what they want to hear. I alter facts and make things seem black and white.
But nothing is that simple.
The dirt cushions my walk as I make my way home. Crash! Noises come out of a room with intoxicated men. Great, I can use this! These officials don’t care how hard life is for us and drink to their heart’s content.
I walk in. Why are they not in military uniforms? I tap the man near the door. “Huh?” He looks around drowsily.
He looks… familiar, like someone I talked to before. “Axel?” I exclaim.
He stares blankly. “Oh, you’re that girl with that story about your grandmother.”
I back up. “Why are you here? Drinking like some government official?”
He laughs at me like it’s a joke. “Girl, there are perks to working right below the leader of the Remembrance. Ever wonder why we never have elections?” His words slur together as he passes out. I feel sick.
No. This can’t be. Every memory I have of the Remembrance feels suffocating. Every story, rally, chant, crime. Everything I did for a “greater cause.”
I stumble out.
Propaganda posters from both sides fill the halls, blockade me, mocking my naiveness. Why hadn’t I realized how corrupt both were? I was so used to thinking the way Remembrance wanted me to think that I became part of the very thing I was fighting so hard against.
In a state between madman and martyr, I tear down both anti-Remembrance and anti-government posters, turn them around and stick them right back.
“For the ones that still care! For the ones that want to improve! For Grandma!” I whisper the words as I write them in permanent marker.
I hold the hair clip from my hidden pocket. Tears spill. “I’m sorry Grandma. I’m sorry for not listening.”
The next day, I start speaking about Grandma at another rally. Axel doesn’t seem to remember what happened. Halfway through, I switch directions.
“I’ve said this story 20 times, but do you know what we should really be questioning?” The room falls silent. I steal Axel’s words. “Ever wonder why there were no elections?” I smile, chewing my words, knowing I have their attention. “Last night I saw a room full of drunk men, and you know who I found?” I point to Axel. “Him! And all of his buddies.”
I hear a few quiet gasps. Everyone exchanges looks anxiously. “If this is who we are, then we are no better than the government we claim to despise. We are no better than the generations before us, who refused to take action because of greed, who destroyed Earth and everything on it, everything we cherished.”
“Their greed led to our present. Our greed will only lead to a more devastating future. If only we could’ve seen the aftermath before it was too late. If only we’d done something. If only leaders worldwide worked together to stop climate change. If only.”
I walk off the stage and don’t look back.
The very next day, someone reports me to the authorities. I don’t care. I can either die from overworking, dehydration, or heat, or I can die for truth and a chance for real change.
Grandma would have approved.
[1] Khan, Amina. “Catastrophic Storms, Once Rare, Are Almost Routine. Is Climate Change to Blame?” Los Angeles Times, 30 Aug. 2017, www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-harvey-climate-change-20170829-story.html.
[2] Nuccitelli, Dana. “We’re Now Breaking Global Temperature Records Once Every Three Years.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 23 Jan. 2017. www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/jan/23/were-now-breaking-global-temperature-records-once-every-three-years.
[3] “Ripple Effect. “Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History, Encyclopedia.com., 19 May 2019,
https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/ripple-effect.
[4] Belluz, Julia. “Climate Change and health: Chronic kidney disease is on the rise” Vox, Vox Media, 9 May 2019,
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/2/15/18213988/chronic-kidney-disease-climate-change.
Reflection
Reflection
Climate change will keep worsening if we don’t take action to stop it. It reminds me of the question, “What other time period would you be born in if you could choose?” Most people will choose the future because of technology. But sometime in the near future, the past may seem more attractive. I see how our lifespans may shorten, how our standard of living can decline, how things we take for granted today may become things of luxury. Our future may be one of autocracies and lies. In my story, I tried to parallel the character’s struggles with our own modern-day struggles. Through the speaker’s lens, you can see how human greed kills, much like it is with climate change now. By writing it in the not-so-far future, it allows me to show not only what may be in store for us, but also how organizations, like the government, may not be acting in our best interests. Even those who claim their goal is to support the cause, they may only be working for their own gain. By placing current problems in a new setting, it erases the noise of political parties so we can have real discussions about climate change. I don’t want our future to look like it does in my story. I want to have my voice matter. I don’t want all the potential suffering. Let’s hold our leaders accountable and demand that they do something about climate change, before it’s too late.