Another leaf had fallen during the night.
I stared at it through its glass enclosure, allowing the steady hum of the oxygen machine to lull me into the in-between of the conscious and the unconscious. It was bound to happen sooner or later. I just didn’t think it would be so soon—so very soon.
The miners have barely even scratched the surface. Half a century ago, when the sun still shone warmly enough to splay its rays tenderly across our skin like a mother’s gentle caress, the discovery of an oasis underneath this vast desert became common knowledge. However, the report was shrugged off, left to gather motes of dust underneath stacks of folders that bore ancient dates. Who cares about an underground water source if there were countless ones on land anyway?
We should have known better. But, as always, we tend to overlook what is important. Such is the naivety of mankind.
“It’s dying,” I whispered somberly to no one and nothing in particular.
Shaw shook into motion behind me, his plank-like arms squeaking at his hinges.
“Dying? Not alive? Oh no! Bad! Very bad! Bad, bad, bad!”
I turned around to face Shaw in his machinal form — all metal hull, wire, and screen.
“No, I’m not dying. It’s the plant—”
“Emergency, emergency! Nova needs medical help! Bad. Dire situation. No! Needs help. Need fix.” He spasmed and jittered in his frame, filling the bunker with a cacophony of thumps, clangs, and whirs.
He scares me now. He wasn’t always like this. In fact, Shaw had been in tip-top shape for as long as a tactical robot had been expected to last. That is, until the water in his coolant tanks started to dry up. Since then, he has been unresponsive and hysterical.
I was warned not to grow too attached, but is it my fault that I’m so lonely?
Shaw would tell me about the old world—even show me snippets of archival footage stored in his system. I’ve gotten to know more about this planet I live in through him than anything else. Now, I can’t even touch him. He’s just too hot.
“Need to fix—Help Nova—Bad—Help—Me—” he stuttered. His words, which were once as eloquent as those of a poet's, are now constantly being disrupted by something that’s beyond our control.
Seeing Shaw flail and contort like a flaccid marionette makes my stomach twist. I scramble for the vault door as I jump into my Helios suit with its thermal shell and oxygen tank.
“Outside is better than here,” I think to myself as I turn the vault wheel, mentally blocking out the monotonous pleas behind me.
CLANK!
I hurriedly stepped out into the harsh glare of the sun, feeling the faint burn it induced through my suit. The suit was meant to act like an insulator, but one day it’ll be ineffective. I’m sure of it. Nature thinks us foolish; it has gone to the lengths of breaking its natural laws just to have us feel its never-ending wrath.
The desert relishes in unimpeded silence, broken only by the distant clink-clanking of pickaxes against stone. The miners toil around the clock, equipped with nothing but their Helios suits, pickaxes, and hearts brimming with hope—the hope that one day, one of them might crack open a stone and be rewarded with the cool, precious kiss of water.
How we wish for that day to come. But for now, we take on the heat, ever ferociously, like we have done every year, as difficult as it may be.
As I sifted through the dunes, I dared to look at the sun. I squinted against its fiery glare and hurled a plethora of curses against the old world whose ignorance had shaped a planet that was too unfit to live on. The mountains have long crumbled, weeping their dirges as their rock faces what were once revered to as being tall and mighty, finally met the inevitable kiss of the ground below. Rivers and lakes have become trenches that were deep and wide enough to embrace a community within. Buildings and skyscrapers, once high and full of life, are now useless and rusted artifacts erected from the ground. On quiet evenings when sleep would not visit me, Shaw would show me archival videos. His favorite one was that of a train arriving at a station, from a time when steam came out in clouds from trains and women wore layers upon layers of clothing. Mine was of a rocket launching into the sky. Shaw told me my grandfather could have witnessed it first-hand on his television screen. According to the records, that rocket launch brought hope to people across the world. I wish I could have been there.
The concept of blasting into the sky, defying the laws of gravity and physics, was something that I couldn’t fully wrap my head around. But it was a form of escape—to be far above ground, among the clouds and the stars. But the sun is too hot—always too hot. Space exploration became a suicide mission. Today, the safest place is underground.
We truly live in such unfortunate times.
I stood atop a hill overlooking the desert below. Its vastness was so immense that the barren expanse seemed almost an insult to nature itself, as though the land had been stripped off of everything it was meant to hold. I scanned the landscape slowly, etching the view into memory. To my left: a crater being mined by minuscule ants in orange suits; to my right: the thin, ragged flag that marked the entrance to my bunker; and there—what is that?
Just past the next sand dune, hidden under a crevice of a great boulder: a glimpse of green.
In the sweltering heat, I ran.
There, tucked between the gap of the boulder face, is a sapling. Its leaves are bright and limp, its stems sturdy and able. It’s healthy!
They had been wrong, then! The scientists told me that I was in charge of keeping the last plant in the world alive.
I knelt in the sand, cupping my hands to gather the sapling in my palms.
“Demeter has blessed us!” I exclaimed in bewilderment, my eyes filling with hot tears.
A plant in the desert! Out in the open, under the sun! How did it manage to–
*****
A multitude of miners turned their heads to the approaching screams of a girl.
“Water!” she cheered with full jubilance. “There’s water under the great boulder! You’ve been looking in the wrong spot! Water—!”
Upon hearing the word that became an integral part of their daily evening prayers, their eyes—for the first time in ages—glimmered with abiding hope.
