This is Home
Honolulu, HI
2019, Senior, Creative Writing
One. Two. One. Two. My arms move rhythmically as I paddle through the open ocean. Elizabeth paddles behind me, our motions synchronized, as if choreographed. With every stroke, our kayak surges forward, slicing through the waves like a knife. Saltwater splashes up against the front of the boat, stinging my eyes, soaking my braided hair, cooling my sunburnt shoulders.
One. Two. One. Two.
Sunlight shimmers on the surface of the water. Light reflecting off a diamond. Votive candles flickering on the altar of a church. A thousand tiny stars falling from the sky and into the sea. There are countless metaphors I could use, and none of them come close to seeing it in person.
One. Two. One. Two.
I look ahead. The shoreline is just a sliver of white in the distance. Beyond that stand the misty mountains, towering above me like a sleepy giant, covered from head to toe with green. Somewhere on the beach, a couple is getting married. A dog is barking. Tourists are snapping photos. This is the island I paddled away from just a few hours ago and the island I will always return to after my journey is over.
This is home.
——
DATA COLLECTED FROM OPERATION TERRA:
>> POWER ON AD ASTRA ROVER
>> SIGNAL FOUND
>> DATE: JAN. 16, 2137
>> TIME: 13:41
>> TEMPERATURE: 181° F
Home.
Home?
No.
I am the only one here.
No, not Home.
Almost Home.
Used to be Home.
Used to be their Home.
(They want to come home,
don’t they?)
After all the data they fed me about their Home Planet, being here is like being in a recurring dream.
A dream?
A nightmare.
They sent me here to see if they can come back now. They tucked me inside an aeroshell spacecraft. Told me goodnight. Fired me here from their New Planet. The same way they sent my brothers to the Red Planet from their Home. They want to see if I can find any sign that the CO2 in the atmosphere has lowered, any trace of the ozone layer, any spot with livable temperatures.
How can I?
>> ERROR
(How can I tell them
no?)
——
One. Two. One. Two. Land does not seem to be coming any closer. If anything, it is approaching at a turtle’s pace, as if slow and steady ever really won the race. My shoulders are on fire. The wind is stinging my face. The sun is beating down on us. And I am so, so tired.
I pull my paddle out of the water. “Why does it feel like we aren’t getting anywhere?” I whine.
Elizabeth is sitting cross-legged behind me. Her hair shines golden against the blue backdrop behind her, and freckles have begun to appear across her nose after hours in the sun. She is out of breath from all the paddling, but she still manages to say, “Because you aren’t doing anything.”
“Not right now, but I was before,” I say.
“Well, you better start again,” Elizabeth says. Water sloshes up against the boat as she continues paddling.
“You’re already paddling fine on your own,” I say. I can feel my arms finally relaxing, becoming tingly from exhaustion. “What difference will I make anyway?”
“If we want to make a difference,” Elizabeth says, “both of us have to work together, okay?” She is tired but burning with determination brighter than the sun. I can hear it in her voice.
I sigh. “Okay. Okay, you’re right.”
I dip my paddle back into the water. We are so far from home and so close to giving up and so full of life. The ocean stretches across the horizon, and for a moment, I cannot tell where the earth ends and the sky begins. I wonder how much time I have left to see it all.
The shore does not seem to be coming any closer. But I keep paddling anyway.
One. Two. One. Two.
——
DATA COLLECTED FROM OPERATION TERRA:
North America.
Isn’t that what they called this place?
Is this even a place anymore?
It was burned to the ground.
(They burned it to the ground.)
My wheels chug me along. I move in jerky, choppy motions. One. Two. One. Two. I trudge on. I scan the planet for any indication that they can return. I can only search.
The soil beneath me is cracked and dry. A jigsaw puzzle of acid and rock. The soil beneath me used to be full of life.
One.
There are traces of carbon sandwiched between its layers. I can detect them.
Two.
The skeleton of a small rodent.
One.
The fossil of an acid-loving plant.
Two.
A colony of microorganisms, evolved to withstand the heat.
Life?
Almost life.
(They took this planet between their fists
and squeezed out every bit of life
they could.)
——
After what could have been a minute or a century, we arrive on shore. We let the waves give us the final push onto the beach, and I hear the sound of soft sand tickling the belly of the kayak. Elizabeth and I clamber out of the boat and haul it farther inland, the sand between our toes, the ocean occasionally rolling forward to nip at our ankles.
On shore, there is a couple getting married. A dog is barking. Tourists are snapping photos. And now there are two teenage girls, unsteady on their sea legs from their time spent being rocked by the waves like a child in her mother’s arms. We have made it home. We are back where we belong.
But on shore, there are other things that do not belong. Crushed soda cans are swimming through the waves alongside a school of fish. Plastic bags are soaring through the wind next to the seabirds. Bottle caps litter the sand like families of sea snails.
Before, I wondered if I would have time to see the world. Now, I wonder how much time the world has left to show me everything it has to offer.
I bend down and grab a water bottle as it washes up on shore.
Elizabeth turns to me, setting our paddles down next to our kayak. Sand is speckled across her face, creating strange constellations with her freckles. “What are you doing?” she asks, furrowing her brow.
I shrug. “We can’t just leave all this trash here.”
Elizabeth rolls her eyes and places her hands on her hips. “There’s no way you can clean up the whole beach on your own,” she says.
“Well, of course I can’t. Not by myself,” I say. I pluck a plastic bag from the ground. “If we want to make a difference, we have to work together, don’t we?”
Elizabeth chuckles. “Okay, that’s just unfair.”
“But I’m right.”
“Yeah, you are,” Elizabeth says. She begins to follow me down the beach, collecting her share of litter in a cupped hand.
And now we are treasure hunters, traveling across the coast in search of all the things that do not belong. We gather litter as if it will make us rich, as if it is made of gold, as if it is the most valuable thing in the world. Tomorrow, twice as much waste will wash back up on this beach and undo everything we have done. But at least we’ll have done something good. At least we’ll have done something at all.
——
DATA COLLECTED FROM OPERATION TERRA:
They put up a good fight. I can tell. I scrape the surface of the planet they once called home. I feel the remnants of a fallen kingdom. A kingdom of solar and wind farms and even a geothermal energy plant.
They really did put up a good fight. At least, they did here. But there were those who did not follow suit, who said it was not their problem, that it was something for their children to fix instead of them.
Those were the ones who drove the kingdom here.
They painted the sky with carbon dioxide.
Shattered the ozone layer like glass.
Heated the globe until it could not hold life anymore.
(Not for them.
Not for their children.
Not even for the children
after that.)
>> ERROR
They wanted to make a difference. At least, most of them wanted to. At least, most of them tried to. But it made no difference in the end. Not without everyone’s help.
If they wanted to make a difference, they should have worked together.
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Reflection
Everyone today is aware of the harm humans have inflicted on our planet. No one with an Internet connection seems to be fazed by news today about climate change, not because people think it is unimportant, but because people view the issue as too large for one person to handle. Of course, one person’s actions alone will not be enough, but it should be used to promote togetherness in conquering the challenges our world faces, not an excuse to ignore them entirely. Despite having the privilege of growing up in Hawaii, I have only just begun to appreciate the ocean that has surrounded me all my life. I want to watch fireworks on the beach with my family, to have chicken fights with my friends in the ocean, and to continue kayaking through uncharted waters. I wanted children and grandchildren to be able to do the same. Instead of helping, I have stood by and watched as we destroy the Earth. I have taken my planet and my home for granted, and it has only contributed to our demise. From now on, I will lead my life with the lesson the characters in this short story have learned: if we want to make a difference, we have to work together.