God's Country

Chapter Two: In which you Can't Go Home Again

You can't go home again. That's what my parents had told me. Seeing our surroundings now, I wondered if that were actually true.

Charred household belongings, now artifacts of a disregarded existence littered the ground like abandoned shell casings from a weapon fired a decade before. Lumber segments of varying proportions remained as evidence of structures that were once intact. Amidst the rubble lied objects that at one time had held some significance for those who resided here. From a teddy bear missing a few limbs to a faded and dried out tube of toothpaste.

It was impossible to take one step without disturbing the clutter, yet I stepped as lithely as my gangly legs would allow. Paisley followed suit. When she struggled to traverse bulkier objects, I varied my path and did my best to avoid them.

I had to see it, or at least what was left of it.

Home.

I wasn't sure I could find it amidst the heaps of charred remains and vegetation overgrowth. The street was only visible in random scattered chunks and a portion of it was even missing, replaced by a gaping hole. As we came upon it, Paisley and I paused at its edge. It wasn't too deep, maybe a foot taller than the top of my head, but it was deep enough that I didn't want to risk an unwarranted fall. Who knew what was at the bottom.

Paisley started a path around the man made crater. I watched her silently. She remembered little of this place. If I likewise could have spared her the memories that came later, I would have. She was far too young and innocent when the chaos began-a fact I was as disturbed by as I was grateful for. I wished I couldn't remember it. But the memory is funny that way-remembering the things you want to forget and forgetting what you want to remember.

Overindulging was the American way of life and somehow we had managed to sustain it for longer than we should have been able. Eventually overindulging become too much. Schools were filled past capacity. Land was quickly disappearing and being replaced with concrete and high rises. Nature was quickly disappearing. We took it all for granted. We spit on the earth and expected our planet to just take it. Even a glow stick loses its ability to bring light in the dark, and, because of us, the Earth lost its glow.

You reap what you sow and we had sowed our own body bags. We chose to ignore our fate until the reaper came calling. In those days, anxiety was a thick, pungent fog that hung everywhere and permeated through the throngs of overpopulation.

Earth was dying. Scientists had tested and determined that fact. Humankind hadn't managed our existence with the health of our planet guiding our decisions and the mistake had finally caught up with us.

History repeats itself. We have seen that time and again in history books archiving the past. Human nature doesn't change, but we continue to lie to ourselves and believe it does.

Our suffering began gradually, like that of the Jews during the Holocaust. We knew it well, and yet it was unfamiliar. Even I was blinded in my own little world. It took Nylah leaving to draw my attention to the measured worldwide shift. I had all the pieces, but I had no idea how they all fit together.

Bombings and carefully disorganized chaos erupted in Asia first. It spread to South America, Europe, Australia, and Africa in a matter of months. Then it struck North America. I watched it unfold on the news and through media channels. Misinformation perpetuated everywhere and we all viewed it through veils shrouded by deceit.

It won't happen here, we told ourselves.

My parents thought World War III was upon us. It wasn't war, though. It was much worse. We never had a fighting chance. I was twelve when the "Killing Days" began. We didn't start referring to it by that name until later, but it illustrated the time well.