What's the Worst That Could Happen? - Awareness Story

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟒

      

     "Your field trip sure sounds like it was fun." Anne said, now placing the dishes in the sink. They had finished dinner and were now sitting at the table talking.

"It was." Evi replied, "Though quite a lot of people disliked it, I found it very interesting."

"Which part was your favorite?" Abe asked.

"Probably... the night sky simulation."

Esme groaned.

"Seriously, how? When I went to the planetarium that was the scariest part. Everything is so- in your face."

"That's the fun part." Evi winked.

"No it's not. It's terrifying, you're just weird." Esme retorted.

"It's not terrifying, it's cool, everyone who has visited a planetarium before thinks so. You're the weird one for finding it scary. Chicken." her sister stuck her tongue out at Esme.

"1-0." Abe murmured, glancing back and forth between his daughters with a smile.

"Just reminding you that you're scared of Halloween." Esme snapped back, "And I'm the chicken. Right."

"1-1." their dad giggled, raising his palm up to Esme to give her a high five.

Though surprised at the gesture, she smiled and slapped her hand against her dad's in a high five.

"Hey! I'm not afraid of Halloween!" Evi frowned, "It's just the costumes that are too extreme!"

"...And that fear comes from the scary movies you've been watching." Abe glared at Evi slightly.

"The Conjuring is not that scary..." Evi murmured, giving her dad a sheepish smile.

"The Human Centipede is, though. Speaking from experience here." Esme shrugged.

"Snitch!"

"Alright, alright..." their mom interrupted, sitting back down at her seat. "Back to the planetarium."

"Thanks." Evi whispered to her as she sat down. "I actually forgot to mention one more thing."

"God, there's more?!" Abe teased with a fake groan.

"Rude." Evi huffed, "This part wasn't as entertaining but it was still interesting to me. Kind of sad as well. After the cool night sky simulation, the tour guide sat with us and we talked about the Earth's environment. The main point in that talk was climate change."

"Climate change?" Esme was seemingly surprised.

Evi nodded.

"They said educational visits from schools like mine today are great opportunities to spread awareness for climate change."

"That's nice." Anne smiled.

"It is. It's also scary. Well, the things they described to us at least. Earth can get very messed up if we don't fix this."

"Tell me so the next time you get mad at me for telling you to not let the water run if you don't need it when brushing your teeth." Abe scoffed.

"Not the point here."

As they talked Esme rose from her seat and cleared her throat.

"Well, I think I'm going to go study now."

"Surprising." Abe mumbled under his breath.

Esme chose to ignore his comment, as she turned on her heel to leave the kitchen.

"Won't you tell us how your day went?" Anne asked, stopping her in her tracks.

"I mean, it's not like I went anywhere. It was just another school day." she shrugged, "Nothing big happened other than lessons and the fact that I met someone new."

"Oh really? Who?"

Evi turned to look at her sister as well now, curious.

"Zora. I don't know if you remember her from the family food fair earlier this year-"

"Of course I do!" Anne cut Esme off, "Aw, she was such a sweet girl!"

Esme nodded.

"She's very nice, that's true." she took a step back out of the kitchen now, "Good talk." she smiled and turned to face ahead.

"So..." Evi cleared her throat, turning back to her parents. "What was all that talk about uncle Bram I heard before from upstairs?"

     Esme entered her bedroom and shut her door behind her, as she usually did. Her dad thought of it as a way to cover that she wasn't studying, and he was correct for this one time. This whole entire day had been weird. It was almost poetic in her eyes how she casually had two different individuals she cared for experience something horrible. Both events had made her realise, after deeper thought of course, that she didn't actually know what was going on around her. At all. She thought things were fine and now she was wondering how wrong she actually was. If her avoidance counted as ignorance. She didn't want that. She grabbed her laptop from her desk and plopped down on her bed, though not opening it yet. She just thought for a moment.

Thought over the day again. Thought of Zora. Esme had never really witnessed racism around her before. Nor a loved one in danger, like her uncle. Then there was Evi too. Her comment about climate change and the fact that it was brought up during her field trip, made her intrigued and curious.

"Alright..." she murmured as she opened her laptop and was greeted with the password screen.

 She typed it in, and then once it had fully loaded she started searching. Reading. For once in her life, as ridiculous as it may have seemed to some, she started looking at newspapers and articles. Finding out more about what's going on and what she has been missing out on, or rather avoiding. It felt a little odd, considering that for a long while she had believed humanity had moved on from some of these issues. It is the 21st century, after all. And yet with every click and every new website, she could feel her heart drop more and more. Esme found it hard to ever have a real, serious conversation with someone. Anyone. She didn't like bad news, a couple of people had told her before that she's too optimistic. Perhaps they were right. Every time anyone would bring up a negative situation around her when she was younger, she would either shut them out or leave the room. It was one of those things many people including her parents found weird about her, and one of the things her dad was disappointed about. Thought that it made her seem less mature. But obviously that wasn't the case, it's just how she is. Deep inside she knew it was all because she couldn't deal properly with bad situations, so even though she knows what's wrong and what's right, knows what are some major issues that the world is facing, and even though it's not the right way to go about this, she ignores everything. Maybe today's events made her realise that this is wrong? She was up researching for roughly 2 hours, from 7:30 PM up to 9:30 PM. She was too indulged when she heard a knock on the door.

"Come in."

It was her mom.

"Hey, it's me." she smiled, "Ev found a new movie for us to watch. It's about space, your father says she's doing it just to prove she doesn't like horror movies." she added, scoffing. "Want to come watch it with us?"

"I'll pass." Esme shook her head.

"If it's about your dad and not doing homework again I can talk with him-"

Esme cut her off.

"No, it's not that. I'm just not in the mood to watch a movie right now." she shrugged.

"Oh. Alright then, that's fine." Anne replied, "If you need anything, just shout."

"Yeah, okay. I know mom."

And then the door closed again. Esme decided to close her laptop, the names of the issues she read about now repeating themselves in her mind. Climate change, wars, racism, homophobia, poverty. Over and over. She set her laptop aside on her desk, and layed down on her bed.