After you Drift Past the Flowers

I had become mentally sore four winter storms ago. Word was the schools and municipal offices were closed once again. Flights were being canceled in parts of Atlantic Canada as a powerful spring blizzard headed toward the region. Strong winds and a massive Spring storm threatened to bring heavy snow. People living on the East Coast had been advised to start moving away from there since it would soon be inhabitable thanks to man-made climate change.

I turned on my phone and significant snow from the storm they named Maleficent was predicted for all four provinces. Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island were expected to see the biggest accumulation with up to 40 to 50 centimeters predicted for the two provinces. I thought it amusing how the weather nuts had been naming winter storms to pretend they are worse than they have ever been. Just a way to generate traffic to their weather sites I asked myself, or was this really the storm of the year?

Environment Canada forecaster Tracey Talbot warned that any residents along the coastline should stay away from the water and prepare for potentially damaging storm surges. Were the storms really worse than years before? When I was a child I wore pants under my skirt, stood at the bus stop for an extra hour, and went to school. Was this year's weather on a 50 year cycle, or were we all at the beginning of a new ice age.

Did I believe in climate change? Absolutely, because a vast majority of scientists, who live for truth, facts, and proven hypotheses, have all come to the conclusion that we are destroying our planet. All winter it had been record amounts of snow and ice and they predicted record breaking heat for the rest of the year. Could we ever find the brain power to fix it?

All day the storm raged just as they had predicted and P.E.I's premier signed a state of emergency. In a press release, Robert Ghiz said the state of emergency was declared to allow a fully coordinated province's response to challenges they were now facing. Environment Canada predicted the storm might not stop for another 7 days. The population of the island was now advised to evacuate.

Evacuate? To where?

The train pulled into the station covered in heavy snow. Crowds pushed and shoved to gain one of the coveted seats. I soon realized it was not going to go far. As it edged along the coastline the engine seemed to beg for mercy. It was now at the highest of tides and the moonlight seemed to direct the train directly into the path of the oncoming sea. I remembered the words of my grandmother Lucy Maud Montgomery.

"Look at that sea, girls--all silver and shadow and vision of things not seen. We couldn't enjoy its loveliness any more if we had millions of dollars and ropes of diamonds."

It felt like something had filled the air recently and suddenly droves of people seemed to disappear. Was it a knee-jerk reaction to the overpopulation by the government? Estimates had always ranged that Earth was able to comfortably house 12 Billion to well over 100 Billion human beings, but the major problem was the way the world systems were operating. They were not set up to enable such a population without major disasters. 

Suddenly there wasn't enough land to cultivate food, or resources to make new iPhones. Because the earth was an exponential-based economy it would either have to crash or be overhauled - as it was no longer sustainable in its current state.  

Day by day people went missing. 

Day by day the weather got worse in all the corners of the globe.

Day by day the government blamed it on something else.

People were desperate. Reports of phone calls to the government being answered with a robocall solution to their problems were unconfirmed. Yesterday my best friend told me his emotional distress call was going to be channeled into a free trip to what he called a happy place that would turn him around. As I watched him leave that very same day I had a feeling I would never see him again. I was right.

The plane left Los Angeles a week ago. It was scheduled to land in London at 6:30 the same day. The Aviation Herald reported at 9:30 local time that the aircraft was over three hours late, and hadn't landed anywhere.

It could not have gone missing.

Maybe they just lost radio contact.

This is happening everyday!

The government had no information after it went missing. I'd be surprised if that is truly all they know at this point. That's a heavily traveled, very populated corridor. Lots of other planes in the region, lots of ships in the water, lots of people on the ground. Information will come quickly, I hope. 

They are gone, maybe not literally. 

Had the plane lost contact because of a storm?  

Hoping for the best, but at this point, one has reason to fear the worst.

There had been speculation that the aircraft had landed in Ireland, however nothing was certain yet. “We are working to verify the authenticity of the report and others,” a local reporter said.

Meanwhile, BBC reported that the Emergency Rescue Center just announced it had found a signal of the missing plane. I watched the playback on my phone. At 5:09 PM (they were + 8 hours to GMT) flight MH300 was at an altitude of 35,000 feet & 469 knots.

At 5:19PM they were at ZERO altitude & 471 knots.

At 5:21 they vanished from the screen.

They were the only plane in that vicinity for a couple hundred miles.

The report however could not be confirmed. More than 239 people were now being reported missing. and at that moment I knew I had to make a call for help for the rest of us. 

Too late.

As the train plowed into the 20 foot wave I smiled as I began to view the world with kaleidoscope eyes. The wall of snow was now blowing upwards. If my theories were correct the streets would be clear soon and it would be summer in mere hours somewhere. One could only hope. After all, was this in reality going to be an accident? The plane disappearing was no accident either. It was just fate misnamed. We were in the throes of a social disaster.The time to prepare had passed.