“Have you seen the sky today? It’s as blue as the curtains,” I said as my mom wrestled the groceries out of my arms, as if she feared that I would collapse and die if I held them for even a moment longer. “Did you get lost? You were gone so long, and it could have rained and - ” Anxious footsteps preceded the curling of my mother’s cold hands around my arms. “Hi momma.” With my free hand, I pulled the front door closed, squinting as my eyes struggled to adjust to the dim light. After turning its dark eyes towards me and grunting in what I’d like to imagine was appreciation, then hauling itself back into the frothing sea, the turtle too was gone.Īfter gathering the dropped groceries into my arms, so too was I. The turtle gulped, and what remained of the molten mess - and any ideas regarding scientific experimentation - were gone. But the larger part of me, the catastrophizing bit, imagined the bacteria corroding my finger off, and then conjured up a vivid scene of my mother’s explosive reaction to this potential incident. A sick, scientific part of me wanted to scoop up some of the spit and look at it under a microscope. The turtle’s moving teeth were also the work of scientists. I couldn’t see them, but I knew in its saliva there were millions of genetically engineered bacteria, chewing and grinding that plastic back down into its most basic, organic compounds. Some kind of clear fluid dribbled from its gums. The turtle pulled the bag into its mouth, where the plastic began to soften, then bubble. ![]() It cracked open its mouth revealing its teeth, which were eagerly sliding back and forth along its gums, like the blades on the antique electric chainsaw my mom used to have. If the world didn’t want to be seen, it wouldn’t be so beautiful.Ī cardboard carton of milk, three bananas, and a pineapple fell into the sand as I inverted the plastic bag, then crumpled it into a ball and tossed it at the turtle’s head. If the world didn’t want to be seen, it wouldn’t be so beautiful. A sea turtle, almost as large as me, with powerful fins and dark eyes. But I’d never seen anything like this the cerulean, cloudless sky, fervent waves that fragmentized the layer of algae across the ocean surface just enough to allow cracks of the water underneath to peek through. White walls, some baby raindrops through my grimy window, the thick curtains that hid the world as soon as rain clouds rolled in. Well, I’d seen a lot of the same few things. They were still endangered, even after scientists genetically modified them so that the species could survive the warming, and the ocean acidification that came with it. If I didn’t want this to be the first and last time she let me leave the house by myself, I should’ve gone then.īut I couldn’t leave. ![]() Mom would be furious if I stayed out too late, even more so if I came home with heatstroke. Either the extreme summer heat or the mix of my glee and nervousness caused my cheeks to throb with warmth and my entire body to sporadically twitch. I leaped to my feet and swept my grocery bag up into my arms. ![]() I squealed, quietly so as not to scare the lumbering beast, but loudly enough to release the ecstatic tension that was forcing my lips into a smile so wide that it was painful. With a betrayed snort, the turtle hauled itself back towards the shoreline, where it began to pitifully dig around in the sand with its beak. Its serrated teeth brushed against my skin, but upon realizing that my finger was not synthetic material, it snapped its mouth back in a fashion that was strangely robotic for an organic creature. What she did have, was extreme paranoia.Īs the turtle’s mouth started to close over my trembling finger, I feared she might’ve been right after all. When she was young, Rwanda had no ocean, and no sea turtles. “First it will take your finger, then the rest of your hand,” she’d warned, but I didn’t trust her judgment. Imagine 2200, Fix’s climate fiction contest, recognizes stories that envision the next 180 years of equitable climate progress, imagining intersectional worlds of abundance, adaptation, reform, and hope.
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