A Present For Her Thirteenth.

It's the fifth day of the fifth month of the fifth year. The world outside is still mostly dark. Something miraculous will happen today. I can feel it.

 It was bound to happen one day, the way we were destroying the environment. Things started falling apart. The waves came, the rain was acid, the flights got grounded, the bombs fell, the people ran everywhere, wherever it was safe and just like that the world changed forever. The borders dissolved, not in a god way either, gangs were everywhere. We ran too, miles and days and months of running and we didn't know where we were anymore.

 Then the world went off grid, and we had to shelter underground, the power lines ran foul and the world was cloaked in darkness once the sun set. In the day pollution and debris obscured the sunlight. I was determined to survive. Towards the end of the first year, I was going outside the bunker for water, when I find her crouched in a corner, a little thing, a waif. She reminds me of the little girl I once had, the one I lost that first day of the first month of the first year. I sit down gently, next to her. She flinches. I pray life has been kind to her this far. 

 I waited for her to trust me. Gigi started to follow me around from that day. That wasn’t really her name, she had an old tattered magazine, which had some model called Gigi on the cover, so Gigi it was. It was the second year when Gigi warmed up to me. I knew it the day we went outside to look for anything of value. Generally Gigi hated going outside, and she was the first one to bolt if there was any hint of strangers or movement outside. That day she heard the sounds, but did not let go, did not run back. She held on to me and that's how they found us.

 The men looked rough, I could have kicked myself for putting us in this position. I swiftly reached for my gun, and fired off a shot. My adrenalin was strong, i expected swift repercussions, but I would go out blazing. Something unexpected happened though. The men, about three of them put their guns down. We stayed crouched behind our rocks, and as the day dawned, I could see their faces slightly through the all pervasive gloom. They were one adult man, and two little boys, teenagers maybe. They looked weary.

 The commune did not look kindly upon strangers, the resources were meagre as it is, but my instinct said these were people who needed help and I couldn’t turn them down. Gigi and I helped the three newcomers back into the cave. The air was hostile still and we could only be out for a few hours. We took them to the part of the cave, where Gigi and I lived, away from the other survivors, and soon fell into a routine where we would share the work and the spoils. 

 In the second year, there were early indications of the faultiness of the ground beneath. The ground shook every now and then, and we could see people starting to leave in little groups. The air outside was corrosive still and I did not know how they would survive, but I thought of my little girl and knew I had to push through, I couldn’t fail Gigi. The man with the two boys wanted to leave. We had subsisted side by side for six months, and although we barely spoke there was an unspoken bond. The man was alarmed we had decided to stay on in the cave, but he wished us well, took one last lingering look at us and took off with his two sons. I knew we would never hear or see them again.

 Gigi and I stood hand in hand, feeling like the two last humans on Earth, watching them recede into the murky dust and debris in the distance. Two months later the ground shook and three earthquakes unfolded, we took shelter in one of the innermost recesses in the cave, praying that the cave wouldn’t eat us up alive. In the third year Gigi and I had survived and walked enough miles under the Earth, through the interconnected caves. We were tired, we would go over ground for a few hours every week now. I could see Gigi’s growth stunted. My eyes would fill up tears seeing my daughter small for her age, but Gigi’s smile could lift up every flagging spirit.

 There were the moments of levity too. One day we came across luminous waters in a cave, lit up by coral, crystals and some weird algae. Any small amounts of water we had was used for drinking. Gigi and I stripped down, rushed into the waters and lay in there for hours. For a split second the thought it might be radioactive did cross my mind, but we survived and we were so happy.

 In the fourth year we had walked through ravaged towns, with most occupants mole people like us, people with hardened, calloused skin, sooted by dust, untouched by sun, a weird combination. I had managed to keep myself and Gigi safe. She was twelve now, soon she would achieve puberty, and I would have to explain life and survival to her even more. My daughters face was fuzzy now. Every now and then I would remember a song I sang her, a mole above her lips, the way me and my partner would take her to a fair, a farm, her school. 

Who would have known our disregard for climate would have such grave consequences for Earth. We heard the poles had been reversed now, and some parts of Europe had broken off into island nations. One of the towns we walked through smelled different, there was an earthy tang in the air, I hadn’t smelled in years. It was about to rain again. The last rain was three years ago and acid had poured from the sky. Gigi and I ran into an empty house, shielding ourselves. We watched amazed as the rain came and went, scalding nothing in its wake. People poured forth from the abandoned houses, dancing in the streets. Hope had arrived. It started to clear bit by bit, we kept on moving. Gigi had seen a picture of a beach in a book somewhere and wanted to be near the ocean for her thirteenth Birthday.

 Off we went. Here we are a year later, near an ocean. It’s the fifth day of the fifth month of the fifth year. It’s a clear day today as we make our way to the waters. The ocean has calmed again after the ravage. We sit on a huge dune, watch people on top of other dunes. I send a silent prayer to the Gods watching still to protect the daughter I have now, and to watch over the daughter I had. Maybe a mother will find her, like I found my Gigi. 

 I feel the heavens have affirmed my prayers when the clouds part, and suddenly for the first time in five years, a sliver of sunshine hits the top of the dune, exactly where Gigi and I sit. We have come into the sun now, warming our tired bodies, the best Birthday gift for my daughter, my new family.