The Drawing

We haven’t seen the sun in 583 days. That includes this day, the day where we know if our family gets picked to go. Some families were rich enough to pay for a spot on the ship. Some had connections. I even heard a rumor that one family had hired a man to slip more tickets into the drawing with their name on it, so that they would have better chances. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were true.

Hundreds of us stood in the yard in front of the capitol, in the freezing cold, suitcases and bags in hand, ready to go if our name was called. All that could be heard was coughing.

“Wilson, from 122 Kirk Street, in South Bend.” A family in the front of the crowd gasped and then quickly grabbed the hands of their children, and herded them off towards the government vehicles parked on the street behind them. The relief was evident on their faces.

I looked up at my mother. She tried her best to make her face blank, though the crease in her forehead and her slightly squinted eyes gave her worry away. There was still around 100 names to be called, and the crowd sat on every word the governor said. You see, there is a plan for those whose names are called. When the darkness descended, and the trees started to die, and the food stopped growing…NASA came up with a plan, and every ounce of the world’s energy went into creating a ship. A ship that could house over half of the world’s population and sustain life outside of Earth. The thought was that half would stay and try to come up with a way to clean the Earth’s air and water, to make the trees start growing again. But as the Earth’s condition got more bleak, all the scientists and the government officials and the people who could actually help fix the problem, got their names on the list first. “Don’t worry if you aren’t picked” they said. “you either stay here or you go, but both options have promising futures.” But we all knew it was propaganda. The same people who did nothing about the environment when they had the power to pass policies, were the same ones who were leaving with their tails between their legs.

“Todd, from 3420 Bakerville Road, in Wilmington.” 

More shuffling, more hurried strides and hushed voices. Less than half of the crowd from this morning was left. The governor had two more names to read off. Sweat dripped down my brow despite the cold temperatures. Just call Peterson, just call Peterson.

“Lorain, from 600 Baker boulevard, in Troy. Now, everyone, the next name I have to read will be the last family who will have a space on the ship. But don’t fret, because there is a plan being drawn out right now for the continued prosperity of Earth.” Bullshit.

 I took my mother’s hand and squeezed it. Her face stayed staring, transfixed on the next words that would come from the governor’s mouth. My pulse beat faster.

“The last family will be…Turner 4387 Starwood Lane, in Commerce.”

My stomach lept to my throat. I could hear the relieved sobs of the turner family somewhere in the crowd. I looked up at my mother. Her face was made of stone, except for the tears glistening in her eyes.

“To the rest of you all…I bid you farewell and good luck.” The governor announced, and stepped off stage.

“Are you kidding me?!” One person yelled from the crowd. “You guys started this mess you bastards!” Many started rushing the stage where the governor was leaving. More yelling and screaming started, and then out of the yelling, I heard the boom of a gun firing. The yelling intensified.

“Charlie, we have to leave now. Grab your suitcase.” My mother cried urgently. “Run!”

I grabbed my suitcase handle, and we took off towards the street, my suitcase protesting against the thick grass. Some other families followed suit. Police and government workers were sprinting the opposite way, towards the riot with guns drawn. More gunfire. I stopped to breathe and keeled over, coughing.

“Come on, hurry. We need to make it to the supermarket and get as much as we can.” Still coughing, I began to run again and picked up the pace, suitcase rolling wildly behind me.

***

6 months later

765 days without sun. Grey sky, but a sprout of green. A little sprout of green fighting its way through the hard, dry earth. Two little leaves in a world of grey and brown.

“Mom, look!” I yelled. She came out of the house, her clothes dirty from working.

“Look. There’s green.” Her eyes got big, and she knelt down beside me, and cupped her hands around the small plant.

“I knew you’d show up.” She cooed at the plant. “Charlie, would you get me a shovel and a baggie please.” She started probing at the ground around the plant.

I went into her workshop to grab her things. A work bench was piled with beakers, soil, and baggies of various formulas. Various Ziploc bags were tacked to a bulletin board, all holding dead roots or soil. Each baggie had a piece of tape, identifying the type of formula used. I grabbed a ziploc bag from the box on her desk and a ph reader.

“We could have a breakthrough.” My mom said, as she dug up some of the soil and put it in the Ziploc bag. “No more scouring for cans..” She said absentmindedly, almost to herself.

“I’m going out.” I told mom. But she didn’t hear me, she was too focused on her testing. I grabbed my coat and a draw string bag. I headed out onto our empty street. My footsteps echoed. It was always pretty dark out, what with the sun being gone, but recently the darkness hadn’t seemed so heavy. There was only a few families left in our town. The others who were here left, in search of a warmer area, a place where crops could grow. I asked my mom to leave too, but she was resilient, swearing she would figure out a way to make things grow in the north. After all, this was our home, even if it was a shell of what it had been. I walked for about an hour down the empty roads with dead trees and boarded up houses, looking for the town I had seen on my map. I finally saw the green sign beholding the small town of Franklin. A mile down the road, I saw my target: a convenience store. It was a small thing, with red brick and a glass door. Darkness seemed to thicken around me as I walked toward the entrance. The sky boomed. Shoot.

I started sprinting towards the entrance of the convenience store, my feet pounding against the pavement. The sky boomed again. I smashed my body against the side of the glass door, expecting it to give. Instead, all that could be heard was the bang of my arm getting a bruise.

I swore, and tried pushing the door again. Nothing. I ran around the side of the building, looking for another entrance, but red brick was all that I could see.

That’s when I heard it. The slight ping of a raindrop hitting pavement. I turned around, eyes wild, looking for an awning. That’s when the woosh of a pouring rain hit my ears. I braced myself for the burn, but it never came.

Cool water drenched my face and clothes. No pain or burn or itch came like it had always come before. The rain came down like a sigh of relief and a release of freedom. How could this be? I stretched out my hands as the acid free rain came down harder.

***

1 year later

30 day of seeing the sun.

The sun came like the rapture, coming suddenly like a thief in the early morning. I got up to go on my food run, and there it was, a beam of sunshine making its way through the thick clouds. Not long after the other family in our town had showed up at our door, screaming and dancing in celebration.

Slowly but surely, the clouds started to dissipate, and the sun started to shine through, waking up the dead. Over the next days and weeks, more sprouts started to shoot out from the ground, and the grass started to grow again.

Over the next year, families started to move back to town, wanting to come home. It was one afternoon when a neighbor came by to help us with our garden, that we learned the most crazy news.

“So my cousin works for the government, you remember,” our old neighbor was telling us, and we raked the soil in our garden. “Well he and a few others in his department stayed. Yes that’s right, gave up his tickets. Well I just got a call from him this morning. Apparently the ship…it didn’t make it.”

My mother and I stopped raking.

Through that conversation we learned that the people who went on the ship had not learned their lesson the first time. They weren’t careful enough, and their waste ended up slowly destroying the people and the ship.

So me and the rest of us on Earth…we were the survivors. Without all the waste and emissions, the Earth had slowly healed itself and removed its toxins. Over the next few years the sky became blue again, and the trees were green again. From then on, we took care of the Earth and protected it, never making the same mistakes as those who went before us.