The Bygones

I was still a boy when it happened.

Nothing out of the ordinary was announced. No alarms, no news, no broadcasts, no articles. We continued to live normal lives that day.

I remember that my parents, sister, and I lived in a small yet humble home, with solar panels for the roof and filters for rainwater and underground systems. We tried to cope with the dwindling resources that the people abused decades ago. While our nations were paying the price, we eventually adapted to this scarcity with nanotechnology that started to develop sometime in the 2000's, but was halted in 2050 due to safety reasons and further testing.. We were, very technically, trapped. But we were happy to live for a few more decades.

My family and the rest of our community tried out very best to help others in any way possible. There was no grass anywhere, and the roads were made of solar panels. Carbon sinks decorated billboards that towered over the houses and probably the skyscrapers that once...well, scraped the sky back in the day. Medications were free. Everyone was allowed to have one gun each, and yet we lived in harmony--kind of like a certain country that started the same policy decades ago.

Our town, in particular, was located in a low-lying western country in Europe. It was  below sea-level, but somehow we managed to survive. It's elevated several feet off the ground and gives passersby the illusion that it's on a plateau. Because of this, it's very windy, and some leaders who were actually smart decided to put up some wind turbines here and there. Streets were similar to the roads the nation had before, but blank. The roads before were divided into several segments--trams, cars, bicycles, pedestrians, buses. Since vehicles that run on fuel aren't allowed and any further upgraded models aren't either (for health purposes, apparently), the roads are just for bikers and people. That's it.

Now, before I move on, I'd like to explain the global situation as of now.

Like I said earlier, natural resources are scarce. We have to rely on solar panels and wind turbines for electricity, since fossil fuels and the like are very, very rare.

This is the focal problem. With low fossil fuels and resources, other countries are on the brink of breakdown. The ones that still have stuff like oil, however, are being exploited and--in extreme cases--blown up. See, several countries like USA and China and North Korea (it sprung into action years ago) utilize nuclear weapons. If they don't have these nuclear things, they have bioweapons. One way or another, they're racing against each other for the resources that keep their economy alive. Okay, they aren't doing it on a daily basis, because the UN decided to keep wars at a minimum and that nations should at least help each other balance out their economical situations. So far, so good, but while the actual wars haven't been occurring anymore, there's still the tension.

I remember that there was once this event known as the Cold War, between USA and Russia, if I'm not mistaken. There was no actual war, just extreme tension between the two. Propaganda attacks and the like. Kind of like two people backbiting each other with no obvious progress.

This is the world's predicament. The most powerful countries are locked in tension the world has never experienced before. Meanwhile, all the other countries are just cowering, praying to whatever god they have that nothing bad will happen. Fortunately, nothing did.

But of course, the world is a fickle thing these days. It breaks personal promises as well as world treaties.

And this was the biggest pact it ever broke.