The Last Sparrow

The brown earth underneath their boots was the embodiment of boredom. It was as though Mother Earth had run out of colour and could only paint the landscape in dull greys and browns. Green fields that had once stretched in every direction were no more than memories and the rivers were now polluted muddy trenches.

As Norman walked, he tried to explain to his grandson what life had once been like. Of course, the boy knew the stories about how the world had ignored warnings about climate change and how towns and cities had been replaced by agropods: huge agricultural communities sheltered under hydroponic shields that reduced the sun’s heat and allowed people to grow enough food to survive.

“Of course,” said Norman. “Some people moved north, where it was cooler, but with the ice cap almost gone, dry land was hard to find, so many had to return. A lot died, but a few made it back.”

Even through their UV suits the heat was intolerable and Norman could feel rivers of sweat trickling down his back. His grandson had never been outside the agropod before and had been looking forward to their trip for weeks. For him, it was an adventure, but for Norman it was a routine trip. His science team had been given new chemicals to test, in the hope some of the scorched earth could be used to grow crops. Most of the experiments turned up nothing, but one small area, a mile away, had sprouted a few weeds and he wanted to see if they had survived.

“Is it much further, Grandad?” asked the boy.

“Not far. Its’s just over the hill. You’ll see it soon,” he replied. The trolley Norman was pulling wasn’t heavy, but the uneven ground made it hard work.

His grandson kicked a clump of earth as he tried to keep up. “Will we have our picnic when we get there?”

 “You hungry?” asked Norman, distracted by the sight of a yellowing weed. It had managed to germinate but the blazing sun was turning it to ash.

“Yes.”

The trail was no more than a dirt track and cut across a dried out pasture, except there was no grass, that had been burned away years ago. A brown dust covered the dried terrain like a sickly membrane over charred bones. It had once been good farming land with grazing for cattle, but the rains had stopped and the grass died as temperatures increased. Soon the cattle didn’t have enough to eat, so the farmers slaughtered them, or left them to go wild. Rumour had it a few had survived in the north, but Norman didn’t know if it was true. He probably wouldn’t have recognised them anyway, as his only knowledge of farm animals were photographs he had seen in books.

In the distance, there was a regiment of cindered wooden stumps, the burnt out remains of a forest that had once been a haven to local wildlife, but like the trees, all the animals had died. Except for the Elders, no-one talked about ‘wildlife’ and hardly anyone in the agropod could have described a rabbit, a squirrel or a fox...

“D’you see that long ditch over there?” asked Norman, pointing to a huge gully below them that cut towards the west.

The boy lifted the visor covering his face and mopped the sweat off his brow. “Think so.”

“Well, a long time ago, your great granddad would have come here all the time and go fishing. Ages ago, there was a big river here and he’d get a pole with a length of string and put a hook on the end. Then, he’d throw the hook into the water and try and get one of the fish to bite it.”

The boy giggled with the kind of laugh children have when they are told about the old ways. He preferred the modern ways, because if his mother wanted a fish, all she had to do was go to the hydrotank and pull one out. It was easy.

In the distance, Norman caught sight of a derelict farmhouse clinging to the hillside and refusing to die. The roof had collapsed and its walls were stained the same colour as the ground. A week ago, their agropod had been devastated died during the storms. But the old farmhouse was unaffected. It was as it had been when he was here last time: the same bricks and dirt, and the same gaping holes where the door and windows had been. Now the wind, when it came, could howl freely through the corridors, drying out the paint and turning the concrete into dust. Ten years from now it would be another gravestone on the landscape, and no-one would remember the family who had lived there and worked the land.

After a few minutes, they rounded the brow of a hill and caught sight of a level area about the size of a football pitch covered by a huge canopy. They had arrived. The young boy wanted to see if anything had grown and he ran under the canopy searching for plants. His grandfather was just as keen, but age and tiredness had made him more circumspect; he knew anything growing under the canopy would still be there if he walked slowly, so he took his time while enjoying watching his grandson run frantically around the test area searching for signs of new growth.

Once in the shade, Norman removed his face visor and wiped away the sweat, grateful to feel air against his cheeks. Above them, the canopy rippled in a slight breeze, straining the fabric against the poles. The construction felt inconsequential, but the poles had been staked deep into the ground and it would take another hurricane to rip them out.

Norman knew they needed to find somewhere cooler and guided his grandson to a small bench at the back, where they sat down and pulled out their water bottles. Neither of them spoke as they sucked water into their dried out mouths.

Once he had drunk enough, the boy tossed his bottle in the air and almost caught it. “D’you think any of your seeds have grown, Granddad?”

 “I’m not sure,” he said. “Nights have been cooler so there might be a chance.”

“Can we go look?” the boy asked.

The sun was at its peak and enough UVB rays were coming through the canopy to risk skin cancer and while they needed to check for new growth, it would have to wait until the sun was lower.

“How about we have our picnic. I don’t know about you, but I want some of Grandma’s bread.”

It was obvious the boy wasn’t happy and he gave a sulky shrug before slumping back onto the bench, but soon cheered up when his grandfather handed him his sandwich box. The boy tossed the lid onto the floor as though it was a nuisance and grabbed a sandwich; it was hard to hold in small hands and not made any easier because it was so heavy. After they had eaten, Norman began pulling out scientific equipment from his trolley. Soil testing was a critical part of his job and he liked to be thorough, so most of the equipment setup was left to him, while the boy played with a portable microscope that was anchored to the sample table.

The young boy frowned as he put his eyes to the microscope. “My teacher said there are lots of insects in the soil back home,” he said finally. “But there’s nothing in this stuff. Why can’t I see anything?”

“Well there won’t be as many here as we have back home and a lot of the bugs are really small,” said his grandfather, as he dropped a pack of sample jars onto the table, then he strolled over to the boy’s side and flipped a couple of levers on the microscope. “Let me help. You need to make your sample look really big.”

“Can you make it big?” the boy asked.

“Yes.” Neither of them spoke as Norman stared through the eyepiece and carefully turned the focus ring until everything was clear and then, with a smile, pointed to the microscope. “Have a look now.”

The boy peered through the lens for several moments before speaking. “There’s a couple of wriggly things moving around.”

Norman nodded. When he first became interested in science, he had read an old book that said there were five and a half billion insects in every square mile of land. Nowadays, most of the bugs had either died because of the rising temperatures, or soil contamination from when farmers genetically modified their crops. They had tried lots of things to reverse it, but eventually they were forced to conclude that once the bugs were gone, they were gone for good.

Two hours later it was safe enough to take soil samples from various parts of the area. Norman threw a pack of sample jars into two bags and gave one to his grandson, along with a trowel.

“Dig down a few inches and take a little bit of earth from under the surface,” he said. “Remember, we can’t take samples from stones so, if you see any, pull them out.”

“Okay.”

For over an hour they worked, pausing only to stretch their aching backs. It wasn’t heavy work, but it was repetitive and it didn’t take long for the boy to become bored until, in the distance, he caught sight of something rustling on the ground. It looked like small pieces of paper being blown in the breeze and yet there was something about it that was different. From where he was standing, he couldn’t make it out, so he edged forward, taking care in case it was a monster snake, like the one his comic. Slowly, he moved forward, taking every step carefully; all the time, his feet crunched underfoot, as though he was stepping on biscuits. Gradually what he had seen became clear: it was obviously a dead animal of some kind, but he couldn’t work it out. The thing wasn’t like anything in his schoolbooks. It was as big as his hand and it seemed to have two legs coming from underneath with long feet ending in claws that curved into vicious hooks

It was barely moving. “Granddad! Granddad! Over here.” he shouted. “I’ve found something.”

Norman glanced over to see the child staring at the ground. Hopeful that the boy had found a new plant, he lifted himself up, trying to ignore the clicks from his back, each volley sounding like a burst of machine gunfire. Twenty years ago, he could have pulled himself up in a stroke, but now it took a minute or two for his ageing muscles to kick in. Once upright, he tossed his trowel onto the ground and wandered over to see what the commotion was about.

When he arrived at his grandson’s side, the boy’s face was grim.  “There,” he said pointing. “It looks like an animal.”

Norman edged closer. At first, all he could make out was a ball of brown feathers, but as he looked closer, he realised it was a small creature lying on its side, its chest stuttering as it desperately clung on to life.

“Oh my God,” said Norman dropping to his knees. “It’s a bird, but I think it might be dying.”

Norman trickled a couple of drips of water onto its beak, but it made no effort to drink. For a moment, he thought it might recover, as it twitched its head slightly - there was no strength in the action. A few seconds later and it was motionless and only its eyes staring back, begging one of them to do something to save it. But, even in the oppressive heat nothing could protect it from the cold shadow of death. Adult and child watched in silence as the bird faded into a lifeless sack of feather and bone, its eyes fixed open. Once, they had been as bright and black as onyx, but now in the heat they were becoming dry and dull. The creature lay at an unnatural angle, legs splayed out and its feathers bedraggled. It was as though someone had tossed it aside like an unwanted toy.

Norman grimaced as he prodded it gently and the boy jumped back, almost expecting it to come back to life. “It’s gone,” he said quietly, stroking it with his index finger.

“What was it, Granddad?”

“It was a bird,” he said “I was reading about these in an old science paper only a few weeks ago.”

“What’s a bird?” asked the boy.

“Years ago, we had lots more trees and birds made their homes in them. There were lots of different types. If I’m right, this one was a sparrow.”

“Where are all the birds now?” asked the boy, his eyes filled with wonder.

“Well a lot disappeared as it became hotter,” said Norman, a hint of sadness in his voice. “Then, when the trees and plants died, the rest vanished too.”

“Did they all die?” asked the boy, his nose was starting to run and he wiped it with the back of his finger.

“Well, we don’t really know,” Norman said. “We’ve always assumed that birds became extinct.”

“Why?” he asked, sounding confused. In the boy’s mind life was simple: grown-ups knew everything and what they didn’t know wasn’t worth understanding. But this was important. How could all the birds disappear without grown-ups knowing where they had all gone. It didn’t make sense.

“A few managed to fly north, but after a few months a lot died because of some disease. We never knew what happened, but it seemed to kill them all off.” Norman paused to mop the sweat off the back of his neck with the palm of his hand.

The boy frowned. He didn’t know what to think. Except for a few dogs back at the agropod, he had never seen an animal “What happened to the birds that stayed?” he asked finally.

“We think they all died. Many of the forests caught fire and the fields withered away. Soon there was nothing for them to live off. It became too hot and for years people were finding dead birds everywhere.”

For a while they stared at the sparrow in silence, each lost in their own thoughts, and neither able to escape the heaviness of the moment. For Norman, the sight of a dead sparrow in the middle of his patch felt like he had failed somehow. It was as if this carcass was telling him the planet was finished and the earth covering it like a shroud and there was nothing he could do to save it. 

The boy broke the silence first. “Granddad?

“What, kid?

“Do you think the sparrow died hungry?” The boy asked, pointing at the body.

Norman tugged at his wiry grey beard. “I don’t know. There’s next to no food outside the agropods anymore. My bet is that it died because it couldn’t find water.”

“Does that mean all the sparrows are dead?” he asked.

There was a long silence.

Norman felt his throat tighten. “I’m afraid so.”

The boy grimaced. “Granddad?” he asked, looking close to tears. “Was this the last sparrow ever?”

Norman nodded. “I think it was.”

“Granddad. I’m sad,” said the boy, his eyes dampening

The boy had never seen anything dead and he was frightened. He wanted his grandfather to get rid of it, to bury it so deep he could never remember it ever again. But he knew he would never forget today. The sight of that sparrow lying on the ground and staring through dead eyes was seared into his brain. He wanted to run away, to hide from it all, but there was nowhere to go. Wherever he went that dead sparrow was in his head and wouldn’t go away.

“Me too, kid,” Norman said ruffling the boy’s hair, and then he picked up the boy’s trowel. “I think it would be a good idea if we buried it. Don’t you?”

“Will you do it? The boy asked, looking at his grandfather. “I don’t like it.”

Norman nodded.

The boy took a step back as his grandfather starting digging. The ground was as hard as flint and it took several attempts to chip away before a hole appeared. Even a small grave a few inches deep was enough to bring Norman out in a sweat and halfway through, he paused to wipe his brow and take a drink. He smiled back at the boy.

Then, Norman reached over to the dead bird, cupped it in his hands and dropped it into the hole. Once it was level, he pushed the earth over and stood up.

“It’s done.”

“Good,” whispered the boy.

After a few moments they stood up and Norman suggested they pack their things and return to the agropod. It was getting late by the time they lowered their visors ready for the walk home. The boy was glad to leave; he didn’t like it here anymore, but Norman was different, he felt sad and defeated. From where he was standing, he looked over at the small pile of earth that had become a makeshift grave.

“Goodbye, little sparrow,” he said quietly under his breath. “Our own stupidity and greed killed you … you deserved better …. rest easy, little one.

After a few minutes, Norman turned around, picked up the handle of his trolley and started walking back towards the agropod. His grandson had been given a cruel awakening about life, but he would survive. He had no other choice. As for the soil testing, he would have to come back tomorrow to complete the rest of the survey, but somehow, even if he could manage to make the plants grow, the place would never be quite the same.