The Storybook

Dragons, griffins, centaurs, unicorns...these creatures inhabited Zac's imagination each night, long after his mother had swiped her screen closed and dimmed the light in his cubicle. But of all the stories, his favourites were those which told of the marvellous, mythical creatures of the sea: whales spouting great sprays of water, dolphins leaping and racing, turtles with their wrinkly wise old faces and their big patchwork shells. From man-eating beasts to tiny, wraith-like horses, he loved them all.

Perhaps it had something to do with the way his mother told those tales, a note he heard in her voice. Someone older than his four years might have recognised it as wistfulness. 

"It's because they were real," Chloe told him. "I saw a book once. She had it hidden away."

"A book? What's that?" Zac had never seen one.

"Come, I'll show you."

Their parents were entertaining. Chloe and Zac crept past the galley, where there was scarcely room that night for the second food printer.

"This way."

Chloe led him to their parents' cubicle; he watched as she pushed a button and a draw slid out from beneath the bed. Chloe lifted something out which, as he watched, fell open and leaf upon leaf of glossy pictures unfolded as they sat and laid the book in Chloe's lap. There they were, all the wonders of the oceans, just as they were in the stories.

"Do you think she ever saw such things?" Zac asked, in awe.

"I don't know. But Grandma might have done."

Chloe pointed to words written inside the front cover. Zac couldn't read the book, but he could read the message.

"To Beth, love from Mum."

They spent a long while looking through it. Zac liked turning the pages, their crisp feel beneath his fingertips. At the very end there were pictures which tugged at his heart; stories his mother hadn't told him. Pictures of animals caught in nets, or with looped things caught about their necks, or with filmy substances clogging up their mouths. Pictures of stuff floating in waters which, in earlier pictures, had been clear and beautiful.

A sick feeling began in his tummy. He needed to find out more; what had happened to all these creatures, to the oceans? They used a password Chloe wasn't supposed to know and began to search. Soon Zac found his answers. By the time they came across a pod of whales mourning a dead calf, tears were running down both their faces.

Back in his own cubicle, Zac sat sniffling and hugging his knees. He had so many questions. But for now, he opened the portal and closed the hologram which obscured the outside from view. He knew already, really; the world outside, barren and dead with its mounds of waste, with massive machinery working all hours to recycle rubbish into products they could use... he knew that somehow, they were responsible.

He went to sleep that night crying for a lost world.