The aquarium and the submarine

Submitted into Contest #60 in response to: Write a post-apocalyptic story triggered by climate change.... view prompt

4 comments

Kids Science Fiction

A tiny yet sophisticated periscope peeped from the surface of the sea to monitor day and night. Hundreds of high resolution cameras, across the bubble like sharp mesh fencing zoomed in and out to check the proximity of any fierce water animal '.Safe seismic range and optimal water conditions', reported on the computer screens. ”We can survive for yet another day,” rejoiced a home guard. 

...Overwhelmed to present the antique glass bowl with a wire, in a discrete society, strongly connected by high generation internet, Kabeer joined the video conference of his class and began to explain the mechanism behind the working of his very interesting discovery as his weekly presentation.

Aquarium’ the title of his presentation popped up on to the screens of all his e-classmates and each student struggled to read the unfamiliar word.

“A couple of days ago”, he started the presentation, ”while I was helping dad in decluttering the store space I found this weird glass bowl. It was so pretty that I decided to keep it for myself as a toy after dada decided to abandon it as neither he nor I had an idea of what it was and what its purpose was. After school that day, I began to paint on it. Grandpa was over joyed to see this peculiar bowl with me and told me the story behind it. It was gifted to him by his parents. He had earned it when he was apparently of my age for securing good grades in an exam. Its called an Aquarium (uh.kveuh.ree.uhm). And you know what! They petted fish in this.”

Students were astonished to hear that.

“Were they not afraid of it?” one of them asked in disbelief.

“I was surprised to learn that too”, Kabeer responded, “Imagine those giant, dreadly fish that can smash our submarines in one go were once tamed in these tiny glasses”.

“ And how did they do that?” enquired another.

“They filled this bowl with water, added some colorful pebbles into it and some moss and seaweed like looking plastic replica and put fish into it”.

“ This is an air pump,” he said holding the wire and pointing at a black pipe inside it, “It is just similar to the ones we have installed in our submarines, just that this one pumps oxygen from the atmosphere into water while ours extracts the dissolved oxygen from water and fills into cylinders.”

“What is that? At_moss_pear?” asked another.

“It is the air that surrounds water,the hydrosphere.” Answered kabeer.

“Your grandpa lived on land? That means you are an alien”, remarked someone.

“No, everyone lived on land back then”, shouted Kabeer.

“You are exaggerating and trying to make a fool of us. Land is not for us. How would we survive its harsh unpredictable climate amidst those mighty wild animals”, demanded someone.

Amazed students raised questions one after the other

"Can fish be reared?".

“How did they fit the gigantic fish into a small bowl?”

“Isn’t plastic illegal?”

“How did they meet the eating demands of fish?”

“Why did they even keep such a dangerous animal in home?”

"Did it not eat them?"

Kabeer was totally puzzled by the how, what and whys. The teacher interrupted to calm the class and explained them modern theories of evolution.

“Well! All that Kabeer just spoke about is true. You’ll study this in your higher classes under the subject called modern evolution. Unlike the outdated ancient evolution that is based on meagre theories modern evolution is based on evident facts. If you can check through your old databases at home you might find photographs of your great grandparents actually living on land. This is not very old but just a few decades ago when land was open to air and humans dominated over it. Everyone could freely live, walk and breathe unlike now. We didn’t need an artificial mechanism to breath in those days.”

“You mean we didn’t have to carry these oxygen cylinders along”, interrupted someone,

“Absolutely not, we are basically designed to live on land where oxygen is freely available, its due to the phenomenon called global warming that water melted from the polar caps and covered land.”

“Land is a beautiful place to live upon. We can experience day light and darkness of night. There used to be diverse moderate seasons called summer, winter, spring, autumn and rainy unlike now.

“Wow!” wondered students, “then what happened?” they were perplexed.

“Our forefathers got really selfish with their lives that they exploited almost every part of nature . They disturbed its harmony to an extent that mother earth stopped giving us any of her blessing. With just a flick entire human race got blow hard enough to ever heal. Now we are living a cursed life where we are constantly facing danger from the marine life in water and from wildlife on land. Now that only a few thousands of humans are left we constantly face the threat of extinction. If only our forefathers had believed in the theory of climate change and changed their life styles our lives wouldn’t have been this miserable.”

“But humans are considered to be the smartest of all creatures, how couldn’t they not presume this?” asked a student.

“This was already predicted but we were blindfolded by our greed,” replied the teacher.

"Why didn't we stop this from happening?" asked a child.

"It was our arrogance that made us feel most superior.We believed we could control everything and never realized that we lived on the expense of nature."

"Can we still go back on land?"asked someone.

"We have been trying to live a sustainable life since the catastrophe and nature seems to be healing as per the recent reports.If we continue to live with harmony may be yes someday we can go back on land we must never disturb the balance again,"explained the teacher.

"I still don't understand how they put the gigantic fish into a bowl,"said a girl.

"Just the way nature put us into submarines now,"smirked the teacher.

"Why did just we survive the apocalypse?"enquired a boy.

"Because God wanted us realize it was his nature and not ours."

 And the class ended with a regret over lives and disdain over the human race that brought about the climate change.

September 24, 2020 16:23

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4 comments

Keerththan 😀
17:43 Oct 06, 2020

That was a new concept. Enjoyed reading it. Keep writing. Would you mind reading my new story? Thanks!

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Safiya Tahseen
01:00 Oct 07, 2020

Thank you for that...sure I'll read yours once I find time.

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Mustang Patty
10:17 Sep 26, 2020

Hi there, I like the story a great deal. You've brought a lot of elements to life and did a great job of showing us how children would react to the 'finds' in the ruins of our society. As with so many writers who are starting out, you struggle with commas and the conventions of writing prose. Just a few techniques I think you could use to take your writing to the next level: READ the piece OUT LOUD. You will be amazed at the errors you will find as you read. You will be able to identify missing and overused words. It is also poss...

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Safiya Tahseen
10:37 Sep 26, 2020

Thank you so much for the review.my email id is safiasiddi@gmail.com 😊

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