Shelter in a New World by Emma Ainley, flat Cola

 

Be careful walking across Crystalline Bridge and its ever-growing craters. North Sorilla’s hailstorms were chipping away at it. Each strike of a hailstone scratched the glass and deepened the wounds.

            Heath wanted shelter. No matter one’s stage in life, or how much money someone had, shelter was a human right. Especially during storms like this one, Ellen – people still named their storms, despite their increasingly destructive powers and growing number of victims. It felt insensitive.

            Yet, North Sorilla’s naysayers complained that ‘people nowadays aren’t tough enough.’ Apparently, young people couldn’t withstand the hailstones and their ‘little pinches’ not unlike vaccinations. Thousands of vaccinations from the sky every week, causing colds rather than preventing them.

            If the bridge collapsed, then the last of North Sorilla’s connections to the outside world would be gone. The bridge did not cross water – not until the hailstones melted, anyway. It stretched over a ravine, where the bottom smouldered and smoke clouds masked the deep drop. Good luck traversing the ravine without the bridge. And good luck trying to build any additional structure during or between the near-weekly storms.

            Climate change. A hot topic twenty years ago. A topic that North Sorilla dismissed as ‘another buzzword.’ Well, until the hailstones had grown the size of bath bombs. Until the hailstones slammed into the ground and fizzed as they melted, simmering with whatever chemicals made up groundwater these days.

            Well, North Sorilla thought, it’s too late to do anything drastic to reverse the situation. They did rid the country of fossil fuels, cars, and anything toxic or only perceived as such. However, North Sorilla focused on continuing life in its new environment, rather than undoing climate change. Enduring the weather, walking to local shops, and working and playing locally. Of course, work and play choices were limited. Work included putting out a lot of wildfires, evacuating people from floods, all of that.

‘You need something, son?’ a man called from his car window.

Shields stuck out of the car’s roof, stretching from the sides like helicopter blades. These ‘blades’ guarded the windows.

Cars. A rare sight in North Sorilla. Hybrid cars weren’t good enough for them, and they were too scared of electric car batteries to allow them anywhere further than the bridge.

‘A way out of here,’ Heath said, and the man’s lips twisted.

‘Me too. Can’t afford it. Hope you’ve got enough money.’

            ‘No. I’d rather be homeless somewhere with calmer weather.’

            ‘Heh, wouldn’t we all. The world won’t give us that anymore, son. Climate change affects everywhere.’

            True. Through no fault of his own, he, like the rest of the population, was suffering Earth’s hand-picked consequences. Heath was born a decade after climate change was deemed irreversible; he hadn’t experienced life before it.

            ‘C’mon,’ the man said. ‘Hop in. We’ll find somewhere to go. People aren’t crazy everywhere.’

            At least the man’s car was some form of shelter. Heath allowed himself to be driven into the distance.

Bio:

Born in Scotland, Emma Ainley is a student who is studying creative writing and the English language. She usually writes fantasy and speculative fiction.

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