Where I'm From

“Where I come from we had things called trees. They were tall like the outposts on the perimeter but they were made of wood instead of metal. Take, for example, this desk,” she said knocking on the sturdy oak, “ this desk came from a tree. Isn’t that fascinating? And the trees had things called leaves. They stuck out from the tree branches.” She spread her fingers and stuck her hands on top of her head. “These little pieces that stuck out of the branches of the tree were the most beautiful shade of green,” she said, one shaky hand holding up a colored piece of cardboard paper, “but in some places during different times of year the leaves on the tree would turn red or yellow or sometimes even purple.” She held up another picture that showed giant scaly growths growing up out of the ground. They were all clustered together and blotted out most of the sky. The picture looked like it was taken on a different planet.

 “But aren’t you from here?” someone in the front row asked.

  At this, everyone turned to look out the window at the ever yellow sky. It was the dry season and the land which could only be described as a great patch of dirt was deeply cracked and the constant gail winds would have blown everything sideways if everything hadn’t been bolted down.

“Yes and no,” she said, “but that’s not, this was a long while ago when I was still a child. The sky used to be blue most of the time and we used to climb the trees-”

“You used to touch those things?” someone blurted out in shock.  

“We haven’t got much time, Ms. Haven. Perhaps you should get on with the lesson,” Ms. M said sternly from her desk in the corner. 

“Of course,” Ms. Haven said and limped over to the small board that was prepared for her. Ms. M had insisted that she use the hologram matrix as the lesson had been downloaded there, but Ms. Haven thought that the small graphite boards would be more authentic. She pulled out a small staff and started to write. Next to her looping writing were the words ‘cultural history’ and an odd looking map. Pointing she said, “This is the territory formerly known as the United States of America. The colored parts are the land and the blue parts are water. There used to be so much land on both sides before- before everyone had to move inward.” She pointed to the edge of the colored pieces of land. “I was born and raised here on the eastern coast in a state called Massachusetts. It was actually the first place that the English landed when they first came to the Americas.”

“The English?” the same student in the front row asked. 

“People from England. You see, there used to be more territories of land besides this one. Across the ocean, when the ocean was much smaller, people lived on land in places kind of like this one.”

“How did the ocean get smaller back then?”

“Well, it didn’t get smaller, they just were small and then they got really big like the way it is today.” 

“How did they get bigger?” 

Ms. Haven looked at Ms. M who was now sitting silently in the corner glaring at her. 

“Well, that part is a bit harder to explain.”

“It is hard to explain, especially from your point of view. Allow me to explain for you,” Ms. M said in a voice that was supposed to be friendly but which noticeably set Ms. Haven on edge. Ms. M’s black standard issue boots thudded on the linoleum as she stood up. “Many years ago when the Earth was still fertile and viable, the humans of that time, if you could even call them that, noticed that the Earth was getting warmer. All of the scientists of the time warned these… people that if they didn’t change their ways the Earth would surely suffer. None of them, however, really seemed to care. They figured that was a problem for future people, people like you and me,” she said, pointing to the class and then herself. “There used to be huge boulders of ice, can anyone tell me what ice is?

A student raised their hand. “ It’s when water got so cold that it would get hard.” 

“That’s right! Can you imagine it being so cold that water would change from liquid to something hard? It would have to be pretty cold huh?”

The class nodded in agreement. 

“Well, these boulders of ice were so big and so cold but the Earth got even too hot for them. They got so hot that they melted back into a liquid and all the water went into The Ocean except back then there used to be many more oceans besides The Ocean. There was so much water that it ate all of the land up including the place called England that Ms. Haven just mentioned. Does anyone have any questions?”

All of the students sat silently in their seats. 

“You may continue then Ms. Haven. Please, tell us of the heroism of your day,” she said, smiling coldly. 

“Yes, well, what happened back then was rather unfortunate but I can assure you that there were many valiant people who made their best effort-”

“The lesson please, Ms. Haven.” 

Ms. Haven smiled thinly. “Yes.” She pulled out a tiny flag that was colored red, white, and blue and placed it on the desk. “In today's cultural history lesson, I will be sharing some interesting facts about the founding of this country that now serves as the sole habitat for humanity,” she said pointing to the map, “ and some of the people who made that possible. Over five hundred years ago in 1620-”

Just then the lights flickered and then went out. In the silence they could hear the steady wind picking up speed. The red siren on the post above the exit started to spin and  Ms. M rose quickly from her desk. “Come on students, let's hurry to the shelter. Quickly! Grab your things.” 

In a way that was almost robotic, the students reached under their desks, grabbed their bags and lined up in a single file line. With wide eyes Ms.Haven also grabbed her small tattered briefcase and fell behind them. Halfway down the hall Ms. M noticed her and grabbed her arm. “Your shelter is down at the other end,” she said. 

“Oh.”

 It took her a while to get to the other side of the hallway with her cane but she eventually fell in line with the other bi-humans just as they reached the heavy, steel doors.