The Solution to Global Warming

She knew they would die. She did it anyway. 

The latest one was all blonde-haired and blue eyed. It seemed like a waste, but the ocean seemed to grow calmer the younger they were. 

At first, it was sad work. All the pleading. The tears and the grovelling. The madness. It grew tiring, incessant, a soundtrack etched into the back of her head as she did her laundry and her vacuuming; a drumming that followed her around as she pulled the weeds from her garden or as she stood before her marble counter to make her coffee; a symphony of screaming that lulled her to sleep in the wee hours of the morning and followed her into her dreams. 

She remembered how she had dipped the cherubic little boy, chubby feet first, then round little tummy, then small balled up hands that shook and shook and shook, then the neck that led to the round, pink face, and when the sea finally reached his teary eyes she almost felt the tiniest, most minuscule twinge of regret that washed away when the ocean recoiled from edges of beaches everywhere like it had been called from the sand to rush to accept his body. 

 The water and his eyes seemed to blend together when they met, almost indistinguishable in the same shade. 

 And that was that. A few moments of sacrifice and the world already felt better. She tore off her mask and took a deep breath, of suddenly clean air, looking up in wonder at the clouds parting, revealing a sky that was now no longer foggy with pollution, and she found that she could see the streaks of sunlight better now, glittering off of a sea that was now no longer a slowly-moving cesspool of dying sea creatures. 

It was always worth it. 

The ride back to Racsa Beach was a muted affair. There was to be a ceremony, a certificate to be presented to the distraught parents of the unfortunate child, and then a light smattering of applause, polite smiles now unhidden by the barrier of masks, all while the parents wailed and grasped at each other.

‘An honourable sacrifice,’ the President would say, his face grave, his heavily veined hands clasped over the podium on the stage, 'a necessary evil.’ 

More applause. Heads would bow in solemness as the anthem played, and she would bow hers as well, but in irritation. The President never thanked her. But it didn’t matter, she supposed. The Earth was healed. 

Until it wasn’t, and the whole process would have to start again. 

————

Now, eight months from the last immolation, her watch beeped, indicating that she had to start wearing her mask out today. Not too long now. She turned on the TV. The calls had begun. She watched as the names of seemingly random children flashed across the screen, together with their pretty faces. They were all very much loved, pure, innocent. They had to be. The government had found that no sacrifice worked as well without them. Adults, teenagers, and orphaned and abused children did not do much to pacify the world, and instead the oceans would revolt. Almost as if to say: ‘Tear your heart out like you have torn my trees from their roots, my animals from their homes, and my corals from my oceans.’

 An eye for an eye, and a child for the world. 

More pictures flashed across the screen - “If you find this rosy-cheeked three year old girl the adorablest of the lot, vote now to toss her into the ocean!”  - thirty of them in total, and she cast her vote. Then she slept and dreamt of the cacophony of screaming that would come. 

————

When the day came the one who won was a tan little four-year-old girl with strangely intelligent-looking eyes. She was not who she voted for. 

The boat ride was silent. It was unsettling. She was much more comfortable with crying and flailing kids, and so tried instilling fear into the girl's heart by way of glaring. 

The captain stopped the boat. There was nothing for miles around. Just a horizon of unending ocean. 

She stood up and grabbed the girl by the shoulders and hoisted her over the edge of the boat with a huff, the waves lapping up her legs as though hungry and hoping for more, and she obliged. 

The water had just hit the little girl’s shoulders when she spoke. “Do you think Mommy will ever wake up?”

She paused her lowering. No child had ever asked her anything before. There was usually no Q&A involved in the job of drowning kids. 

The little girl cocked her head to the side, the ends of her long inky black hair now floating in the sea around her. 

“I didn’t like seeing Mommy that way, you know. Daddy said it was just a game. A game for all of us. He said Mommy would lie down, and I would tickle her, but I couldn’t use my hands, and I had to use the big girl knife from the kitchen, and she kissed me goodnight and lied down and closed her eyes and Daddy told me to tickle Mommy with the knife and I did, and Mommy laughed until she cried, and there was red everywhere that I thought was blood like the time I fell from my bicycle and hurt my knee? But Daddy said no, it’s just for fun, like Halloween when we saw the fake blood - fake means not real, by the way, did you know? And then Mommy stopped laughing and Daddy said Mommy was sleeping and that I shouldn’t disturb her, and that I should sleep too, because tomorrow I was going for a swim.” 

The little girl paused for a breath. 

It would be her last. 

For the mommy-murdering little girl was released from her grip with a splash, falling into the darkness of a sea now roiling towards the tiny body.

The boat ride back was silent. Back on land, the President gave yet another speech that did not include thanking her for her service, but for once she did not care. She was thinking: Was the girl lying? Why would she do that? And was it of any importance at all? 

But the answer came over the course of the next few weeks, in the form of: toxic ash, now thickened to a barely breathable sludge; more people dying, their lungs congested with black matter; oceans, wilder than ever, their waves creeping up onto doorsteps and smashing trees and breaking walls; hurricanes, violent and relentless, tearing up crops and tearing down buildings; and scalding temperatures, painting skin red, multiplying cancer cells within. 

And so the decision was made to wrench away all the twenty-nine other children from their screaming parents, the other beautiful, chubby ( and hopefully non-murderous) ones who had nearly been spared their lives, and throw them all in. Then there were twenty-nine pairs of parents now screaming at the docks of Racsa beach, a hastily-built boat built to accommodate the tied-up children, and so all she had to do was push a metal lever and watch them drop through a panel into the ocean once they were far out enough.

The wailing was magnified by a thousand, it seemed, and it faded slowly as the boat flew across roiling waves towards its destination. The sky was so rife with grey specks it almost blocked out the sun. The air felt thick, even with her oxygen mask on. A layer of grime coated the deck of the boat, black snow falling onto twenty-nine crying children’s heads. A rumble from somewhere deep within the Earth’s crust stirred the sea and nearly toppled the boat.

The boat stopped, its engine spluttering. She made to move, standing up slowly and balancing herself on the deck. But all of a sudden an eerie silence fell upon them, striking her still - the quiet somehow thicker than the ash that now blanketed them. Even the children seemed to feel it, pausing their sniffles for the shortest fraction of a minute. 

Then out of the silence, a great roaring was born, and they instinctively knew this was It. This was The End. The chill she felt in her bones and the way her heartbeat raced left little to be persuaded. She and the children watched in horror as the sky filled with boiling lava, shooting out redly from all possible crevices in the world, watched as the sea started to boil, and there was nothing anyone could do; the Earth was sick and ready to rid itself of its last remaining parasites, and even though the boat was out in the middle of the sea and even though the nearest land where the grieving parents waited was miles away - they all heard it. The soundtrack to her gardening, her laundry, her lullaby - except now bass boosted, volume turned all the way up, hurting her ears. Her heart accelerated to almost impossible levels, her body rattling in fear, and she found herself quickly staggering to the lever, her hands reaching out to grasp the cold metal. 

She knew they would die. 

She did it anyway.