Better than a new year

She came running over to me, very excited. “Grandfather, Happy New Year!” she exclaimed and held out the cookie that was pressed tightly in her chubby little hand. “Thank you my dear,” I smiled as she placed the crumbling baked good into my weathered old palm. It was a simple recipe, one that we used often. The only difference is that it had been rolled up into a ball for the holiday. She quickly ran off to play with her friends, and I was left alone in my thoughts of the old days.

We used to be a very greedy and selfish society, but Mother Nature found a way to change all of that. The weather had become increasingly more violent in the years leading up to the Great Purge. Scientists tried to warn us that we were on the brink of a disaster. But we didn’t care. We were gods in our own right. Ferociously consuming with very little thought placed on the future. The earth finally found a way to say, “Stop!” That year was terrible. Earthquakes deep in the ocean floor resulted in wave after wave of tsunamis. The rising sea walls devastated any major city located on a coast. Disease spread through the standing water. Our emergency resources could not keep up with the constant damage. 

It was Eve Adamson, who came up with the explanation and a plan. She was just an adjunct professor at Texas A&M when she launched the Ark theory. Drawing from the Bible as a reference, she told the world that the story of Noah, wasn’t just a story. It was proof that the earth will cleanse itself with water to make way for a new beginning. She recommended that everyone move away from the coasts, and towards the middle of the country.

At first, she was laughed at. There were a bunch of different memes all touting, “The Garden of Eden is now located in a flyover state near you!” But the longer the destruction went on, the wiser she looked. We just couldn’t pretend that life as we knew it was ever coming back. The president issued a large scale evacuation. Those were very dark days. Between the natural disasters and dwindling access to food and fuel, many did not make it.

I started the journey from New Jersey with my dad and two sisters. My mom had already died from cholera before we left. We drove as far as we could and then walked from there. When my sister Annie became too weak, I strapped her to my back. She had lost so much weight along the trip, she wasn’t that hard to carry. My dad insisted that we walk every day, so on the days that I felt too tired or hungry to go on, she would sing songs from Disney movies in my ear. Somehow, it helped. 

We had to bury her along the way. It was a hastily made shallow grave, dug with whatever we could find. Just as we were about to place the dirt on top of her, Jessica yelled out, “Wait!” She reached inside of her backpack and pulled out a small stuffed elephant. She gave it a quick kiss and said, “Keep Annie safe.” It took all of my strength to hold back the tears as she placed it in our sister’s arms. It was the one personal thing that Jessica had brought with her. Her favorite toy from when she was young. My dad told her not to waste the space in her backpack, as she needed it for food. “But dad,” Jessica had told him, “Pinky Marie will light the way for us.” 

Everything is a blur from then until we got to Missouri. The days were always the same. Walking, scavenging for food and then finding shelter before nightfall. I think my dad had been holding on, just to get us both to safety. He died shortly after we arrived. Since my sister and I were now considered “adults” a term used for those over 12, we were placed on separate farms. We promised to visit each other, but it was tough find the time. Survival was the new way of life. We went from arguing with each other on Twitter to hard physical labor. Everyone in this new society had a job and most of the work centered around food production and preparation.

One of the biggest divisions in those days had to do with Monsanto. The company proposed to the government that they would give away free seeds to farmers if they would, in turn, sign their land over to the company. Currency was dead by then, so there was no way for farmers to buy the seeds they needed to keep the population alive. This deal would, in effect, put one company in charge of our entire future. 

Our president had not been a very popular man. In fact, he was readily ridiculed by all as we wondered how he had ever been able to win the vote. There were many who proclaimed loudly, "Not my president!” and at times he seemed more eager to wage political war with his enemies rather than participate in the duties of his office. He was relocated to Springfield in the early days of the Great Purge and had been joined there by a small group of congress members. Without enough for three bodies of government, it had been fashioned into one with all official decisions being approved by a majority vote. There was enough solar power in the viable states to have electricity at each town square, so everyone gathered on March 1st for the official decision. 

“My fellow Americans, we have come through this great adversity with a strong will to survive. We have all lost friends and loved ones as Mother Nature has showed us who is really in charge. Along that line, I believe that we should give her the respect that she is due. Some would have me place the future of this country on the back of one single corporation. I did not believe this to be our best option, but I feared that we would not survive without the life sustaining seeds that Monsanto would be able to provide us. But then, I was approached by a delegation from Native Seed. Although their stores are not equal to the amount available from Monsanto, I am grateful for their generosity. Their seed bank currently houses varieties of traditional crops including corn, beans, and squash once used by the Apache, Havasupai, Hopi, Maricopa, Mayo, and many other tribes. The council and I have met and we have unanimously decided that we have heard the message from our great Earth and we will go back to the more traditional ways of farming for the good of our land and the people living on it.”

The cheering was intense. For all that we had lost, this was our new holiday. Our Thanksgiving and our Earth day. It was eventually named Three Sisters Day after the crops that saved us. Eventually, over time, we started to pull out of our cycle of living merely for survival. Schools and seasonal markets started to be seen again. But our dependence on each other has not changed. Each of us is still required to have a job, to contribute to our society. Since I am too old for manual labor anymore, I am a “grandfather”. The eldest among us are tasked with watching over the young that are not old enough for school or work in the houses and fields. The little one who handed me the cookie must have an older sibling in school. The government had just approved the teaching of our history, along with the past holidays. 

“Grandfather, why have you not eaten the cookie?” the little one is back at my side. She spied the baked good still in the palm of my hand. The answer is too complicated for her. I don’t want the old traditions to come back, because I fear what will follow. Those holidays did not make us happy. They didn’t make us value one another more. They only cast a wider divide between the haves and the have nots. Now we all have. We have jobs and shelter. We have health from the unprocessed food that we eat. We have a purpose. I’m not willing to throw all of that away to embrace a celebration that we don’t need. 

As she pushes my hand with hers, I can hear her say, “Eat it grandfather, please.” And although I don’t want to participate in this new-old tradition, I bring the cookie up to my mouth and take a bite. For all that it reminds me of, the cookie turns to sawdust in my mouth and I have to reach quickly for my glass of water. “Hooray! Happy New Year!” she jumps up and down and then back to her friends. I walk over to the sink to refill my glass and when she isn’t looking, I throw the rest of the cookie in the trash.