I stopped in a little town at the base of the mountain to buy supplies. Meredith was sleeping. I covered her up carefully with a car rug and entered the small grocery store. I was debating whether I should buy more than just the fixings for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when I saw a mother and her two boys. The boys were bored, as all boys are when taken grocery shopping by their mothers. They were playing with their yo-yos.
Their bluflex yo-yos.
They must have noticed me staring at them, because they looked up. Their bland, incurious eyes summed me up and dismissed me. They returned to their discussion of the best superhero and supervillain. Through the entire encounter, their yo-yos spooled evenly from their fingers in perfect synchronicity, twin lights gleaming in chorus.
I bought enough dried and canned supplies to feed an army garrison for six months. When I went to the register to pay, I noticed a bulletin board covered with missing-child posters. There were so many that when the wind blew they danced like seaweed at high tide.
Before I carried the supplies out to the car, I turned to confront the woman whose boys I’d seen. I knew it wouldn’t do any good, but I had to warn her.
“If you want to keep your children,” I said, “take away their bluflex toys and stay away from the sea.” I lowered my voice. “If you can.”
The woman’s eyes widened with fear. I felt a spark of hope until I realized that it was me she was afraid of.
“Boys,” she said, keeping her tone level, “come here. We’re leaving.”
She headed toward the door, the boys trailing behind her. I couldn’t let them leave, knowing what I did.
“You don’t understand,” I said.
The boys stopped and looked at me. “You can’t stop us,” one of them said. Their eyes were dark, as unreadable as the depths of the sea.
In desperation, I grabbed for their yo-yos. If nobody else would listen to me, if nobody else would do anything … I would. The yo-yos spun away from my fingers, swinging away from me in perfectly symmetrical arcs. The boys turned to follow their mother. The rhythm of the yo-yos never skipped a beat.
I stepped forward.
“Hey!” the clerk shouted at me. “Get out, and leave those boys alone!”
I was defeated.
The cabin was fairly low on the mountain. I unpacked the car and woke Meredith. She was hesitant at first, as though suffering from culture shock. I kept my keys in my pocket and my eyes on her. She didn’t bolt. During her tentative foray into the trees, she found the swing her granddad had put up for her.
After some false starts, she remembered how to use it. I left her with an easy heart. She was pumping her arms and legs awkwardly but with growing enthusiasm, and her face bore the closest thing to a smile that I had seen from her in more than a week. I thought we would be safe here, maybe even happy.
I should have remembered the missing-child posters.
The next month made me grateful we were safe on the mountain. Safe! I should have known better.
Lowlying cities were flooded as the massive icebergs melted. Thousands of people died in the heat. Millions more lost their homes and their livelihood to the hungry sea. And their children. I cannot forget our lost children, because it was my fault we lost them.
Refugees swarmed to the mountains, bringing their most prized possessions. They brought bluflex with them, and the sea followed at their heels. Even the smell of the pines could not mask the salty brine that the breeze carried up the mountain. Though the last of the icebergs had melted, the sea level continued to rise. Worldwide, governments admitted that they were baffled.
I was not surprised when Meredith disappeared. I had lost her to the sea, or given her away, many months ago. I thought I had found her again. I had hoped I could keep her. But hope was a fragile mist that the wind from the sea easily dissolved.
When I called to report her missing, I only got an automated service that took my information, and the line went dead before I was finished. I didn’t bother trying to call back.
On my drive down the mountain, I saw two end-of-the-world signs, four refugee families huddled together under a tarp for shade, and one enterprising man building a houseboat. I wonder where he is now. I hope he’s doing well.
At the grocery store, I saw the woman who had been there with her children the last time I bought supplies. She was alone, and her grocery basket held only single-serving microwave dinners. The dark circles under her eyes told me all I needed to know. I don’t think she recognized me. I did not talk to her.
I did not talk to anyone. The man behind the register talked about selling the store and moving. The basement was flooding, and now his house, farther up on the mountain, was having water problems. I looked around the store, and I had a revelation.
There were bluflex toys near the register and bluflex containers scattered around the store. Bluflex was everywhere. It wasn’t safe.
The sea was coming for its children. It had taken our children, but that was not enough. That was why it kept rising. It would not stop until all the bluflex was back under the sea.
I bought as much food as I could load into the car and drove back up the mountain. I didn’t feel safe. I knew that the global warming would continue until the bluflex was safe beneath the sea. And there was bluflex everywhere. It was the miracle material. It would not all be returned to the sea until the whole world had drowned.
I sat in the cabin, and I didn’t feel safe. I could smell the sea.
I was sitting on the porch one day, drinking, when a garbage truck rumbled past me up the road to the landfill on top of the mountain. I drank a lot. Drowning my sorrows, as they used to say.
I hate the phrase. The sea has taken everything else from me; it cannot take my sorrow.
I remembered my parents complaining about that landfill when it was built. Despoiling the beauty of nature, they said, but it was a barren mountaintop that didn’t attract tourism, so the town council had voted to put the landfill there. I didn’t see much beauty in nature those days, but the landfill… . The landfill would be my salvation.
It was at the very top of the mountain, and it should be safe. Nobody ever threw bluflex away.
I waited until the road up the mountain flooded. I listened to the radio, but all that I could pick up was old radio shows punctuated by news bulletins listing the latest flood disaster areas and designating refugee shelters. The mountain was never among them.
I heard the bulletin when the town at the foot of the mountain flooded. I waited to hear that the top of the mountain, my part of the mountain, was a designated refugee haven, but I never did.
It was forgotten. I liked it that way. I could be alone with my booze and my old-time radio shows. I had no fondness for the human race. We had done this to ourselves with our desire for more, new, better.
I had done this.
I slowly moved my belongings to the landfill. I never saw anybody. From the top of the mountain, I could see for miles. Most of what I saw was water.
Each trip, the land diminished.
Finally, all my possessions were moved. I spent most of my time sitting in a broken lawn chair, drinking and listening to The Shadow. The Shadow knows.
One day the radio went dead, so I just sat and drank. I watched the seagulls. They flew in great wheeling flocks across the sky. The ocean had settled. I lost no more ground to it.
A month after the radio went dead, I drank the last of the alcohol and then spent a week scavenging for half-empty liquor bottles and going through withdrawal.
Without the soothing blanket of booze, I started to think again. Meredith was gone, but was I really alone in the world?
The seagulls could not be the only survivors. They flew away from the landfill and returned days later. There must be other land nearby.
I stopped looking for alcohol and started searching for a boat, or at least an engine.
The landfill is safe, but safety is not the most important thing in life. I saw a column of smoke
in the sky this morning, far off to the east.
As soon as I have finished building my boat, I will set out toward that signal. The sea cannot stop me. I would dare it to do its worst, but it already has. It took my home, my job, and my child. It took my entertainments and my addictions.
It could not take my hope, because hope cannot be drowned, not by alcohol and not by the sea.
If I survived, there will be others. I will find them. And one day, we will take back our land from the sea, and our children will play in the grass.
Abra Staffin-Wiebe loves dark science fiction, cheerful horror, and futuristic fairy tales. Dozens of her short stories have appeared in publications including Tor.com, Escape Pod, and Odyssey Magazine. She lives in Minneapolis, where she wrangles two small children, three large cats, and one full-sized mad scientist. When not writing or wrangling, she collects folk tales and photographs whatever stands still long enough to allow it. Discover more of her fiction at her website, aswiebe.com.
Downpour
by
Lisa Timpf
6:15 p.m., Thursday, September 24, 2048: CFB Borden, Infrastructure Design Testing Station
“And now for the weather, with Windy William.”
Patricia Griffin lowered her tablet to her lap and riveted her attention on the flat-screen TV mounted on the far wall of the monitoring center. Her husband, Jerome, strolled into the room and stood behind her, keeping his eyes focused on the newscast.
“Thanks, Arlene.” On screen, Windy William grinned and extended his arms at his sides, palms outward. “Well, let’s get to the news everyone’s been talking about—that nasty storm that started brewing down in Texas yesterday, and is heading our way. It’s spawned tornados south of the border, along with high winds and flooding, but is expected to lose some of its steam before it gets to us.” His expression turned serious. “Don’t be surprised to see a bit of a light show when it gets here. There may be some sleet or hail in Southern Ontario,” he gestured at the map, “and unseasonable amounts of snowfall for regions north of Orillia.” Snowflakes appeared on the map, dotted between Orillia and North Bay.
“In our region, the storm is expected to dump close to two hundred millimetres of rain in less than twelve hours, starting around 9 p.m. and intensifying through the evening and early morning,” he said. “How are area citizens feeling about this? We went to the streets to get some comment.”
The newscast cut to an image of a twenty-something man with blond hair brandishing a surfboard and declaring, “Bring it on!” A trio of college-aged girls in a canoe on the Nottawasaga River waved their paddles at the camera, and a dour homeowner looked up at his newly installed high-capacity eave troughs and shrugged to indicate his indifference.
An interview with the local Ontario Provincial Police detachment spokesperson provided a sobering viewpoint. “We’ll be monitoring the roads, and we anticipate some flooding particularly in lowlying areas,” the woman said. “We ask that people avoid unnecessary travel where possible.”
“And now, back to the newsroom. This is Windy Willy signing off.” The newsman tossed a beach ball at the camera, and the image faded out.
“I wish they wouldn’t joke about it.” Patricia flipped the control to turn the TV off.
“The storms we’ve been getting have been increasingly severe,” Jerome agreed, stroking his moustache thoughtfully, “but the change has been so gradual that people have more or less adapted. A bit of flooding here and there, a few insurance claims—” he shrugged. “If Mother Nature is sending us a message, most people are tuning it out.”
“From all the reports we’ve seen, this storm could be the worst in thirty-five years, and that’s saying something.” Patricia stood to look out the window, her arms crossed in front of her. “I’m glad we told the girls to head up to Jesse’s place.”
“It’s great that your brother offered to look after them, especially since we won’t be around.” Jerome rubbed his hands together. “This will be a true test for our rainwater diversion infrastructure design. Are you ready?”
“We shouldn’t be testing anymore.” She whirled to glare at him. “When will people realize we need to make changes now?”
“In fairness, some have already bought in,” Jerome, always the peacemaker, commented, spreading his hands palms-out. “But there are so many who haven’t.”
Patricia’s fists were clenched. “And that adds up to property damage at best, loss of life at worst, when we get hit by a storm like this.”
“People need proof,” Jerome replied. “Who wants to raise taxes to pay for changes to infrastructure they aren’t convinced are needed? The human animal just isn’t wired to accept change lightly, especially when it means some inconvenience. The hardest kind of change is proactive change, and that’s what this is all about.”
“Proof,” she snorted, her disgust clear in her tone. “Well, we may get some this weekend.”
6:30 p.m., Thursday, September 24, 2048: Earl Rowe Provincial Park
Irma Cole, Earl Rowe Provincial Park’s superintendent, was thoughtful as she turned off the TV. Was she overreacting? There weren’t a lot of campers—after all, it was only Thursday, and it was the slow season. Still, those who were here needed to know. She had a feeling this storm was going to be a significant event. If she was wrong—she shrugged. If she was wrong, she’d look foolish, maybe shake her supervisor’s confidence in her levelheadedness.
She thought awhile longer, warring with indecision. At last she came to a conclusion and rose to her feet.
Best to be on the safe side. She’d call an emergency meeting and divvy up the occupied sites, sending park staff to each location to notify the campers of the pending weather and, more importantly, urge them to come to the newly built Interpretation Centre. Equipped with a backup generator and situated partway up the hill, the centre provided a spot where campers should be able to ride out the storm in relative comfort.
Once she’d sent the staff on their way, she’d jump into the white park pickup truck and hustle to the camp store to collect provisions. This occasion justified overriding the normal protocol. If head office didn’t like it, that was just too bad.
6:45 p.m., Thursday, September 24, 2048: Alliston, Ontario
Jay Baker had just placed his supper dishes in the sink when his cell phone buzzed. He paused for a moment, studying the small screen, and then rose from his chair.
“They’ve called all the reservists to the base,” he told his wife, Alicia. “I’ll have to pack. Will you guys be okay?”
Alicia nodded, noting the concern in his eyes. “We’ll be fine. We’re well up the hill, and we don’t need to go anywhere this weekend.” She paused. “Plus, we have the emergency kit. Will the storm really be that bad?”
“Maybe not,” he said reassuringly. “The commander’s probably being cautious.” He paused, his expression becoming serious. “But we do have amphibious vehicles, and there may be a need for some search and rescue. Let’s hope the storm isn’t as bad as they’re predicting.”
7:00 p.m., Thursday, September 24, 2048: Long Point
They had flown great distances to get here, and they had much farther to go.
It was time to rest for the night.
As per custom, flocks of monarch butterflies gathered in the trees. Tonight, this particular group was roosting just north of the large lake that lay between them and their ultimate destination. They perched with their slender black feet upward, their black and orange wings closed, lining up side by side for protection.
Instinct would only protect them so far. Those on the outer edges would take the brunt of the storm, if it came, and it had the potential to decimate their numbers.
For now, all they could do is cling to the branches and wait it out.
9:15 p.m., Thursday, September 24, 2048: Airport Road, north of Highway 89
Judy Griffin stifled a yawn as she piloted the family SUV up Airport Road. She was glad the number of vehicles had dropped off af
ter they passed Caledon. Traffic had been pretty hairy there for a while. At least she had the radio to help her keep awake. She nudged the volume higher as she checked the readout to the right of the steering wheel. Fifty kilometres of fuel left. She chided herself for not filling up at the gas station when they’d stopped just south of Orangeville. There’d been a huge line, though, and they were impatient to get to Uncle Jesse’s.
A large, fat raindrop hit the windshield, and Judy groaned. Just what she needed. She’d driven here tons of times with her parents, but hadn’t paid much attention to the route. She was relying on her younger sister Sharon to handle the GPS. Darkness had fallen over an hour ago, and now she had rain to contend with. Great.
“How far to our turn?” she asked Sharon, who occupied the front passenger seat.
“What’d you say?”
Judy turned down the radio and repeated her question.
“Sorry, I dozed off. Twenty kilometres. No, wait.” There was a pause. “How can that be? Twenty-one and a half kilometres. We’re getting further away.”
“We must have missed the turnoff.” Judy gritted her teeth, trying to conceal her annoyance. It was really pouring now and the windshield wipers, set on max, were barely keeping up.
“Sorry.” Sharon’s voice sounded pouty. “I guess I didn’t hear the GPS over the radio.”
“I’ll turn around,” Judy snapped. Sharon didn’t comment on the less-than-elegant manoeuvre that brought them to face the opposite way, though she gripped the armrest anxiously.
“Turn left in two hundred metres,” Sharon sang out at last. Judy could barely make out the dirt road, which appeared as a slash in the forest.
The vehicle crawled along as though feeling its way by touch as the narrow road twisted back on itself several times and large trees loomed on both sides. They splashed through more than one puddle, and Judy was grateful that it was the SUV they were driving and not the low-slung sedan that served as the family’s other vehicle.
“If the GPS didn’t say this was it, I’d be worried we were on the wrong road,” Sharon said timidly.
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