Excerpt: All that's left

If you only knew what this world was coming to. If you only knew what the future held. If you only knew how soon there would be a famine of an unimaginable magnitude. Not only a food shortage but a deprivation of intellectual and human liberty. But I, I intend to break that fast.

My family has lived on this planet for centuries, millennia. We’ve been wealthy and we’ve been poor. Now we are destitute along with so many others.

Earth has been burned alive and there is nothing left. It is an empty shell complete with nothing. People have to scrape out holes in the toxic ground just to have some sort of shelter for their babies.

Food was tremendously scarce. Sometimes digging close to where supermarkets used to be standing yields a few cans of this or that. You never knew if it is safe to eat. But is it better not to eat and starve? That is just one of the conundrums.

We are lucky. We live in a small cave in the mountains. Hundreds of other people populated the Monashees and Selkirk’s with us. My father and mother each had to take round the clock shifts to guard our tiny hovel and meager possessions. Our most valuable item was a couple of bags of seeds. No one knew we had this treasure. We plant a minute plot in a hidden location where the wheat needs watering.

Water is still the one thing that flows freely through the highest of the peaks. The last of the glaciers is quickly dying. Melting. Gushing down the rocks. Although it dries up by the time it gets to the valley floor. It is my chore to climb up the stone walls and gather what we needed for the week.

I was only 12 when I was given this task. My parents have two other younger children to look after plus the crop so when I was old enough to help out – this is what I was given to do. It was tough work but I was willing and able.