The pain in my ribs reminded me that I should’ve cared 10 years ago when people protested the clearing of trees to build a new coal factory on the surrounding hills of town because of the inevitable pollution. The solar energy we normally used should’ve sufficed.
My town was known for subsistence farming, and when a long drought hit and killed animals and vegetation, food production stopped and we had to resort to food banks.
When we finally received rain, we rejoiced because we could finally plant our crops and feed ourselves. The downpour ended up being heavy and it too, killed crops and worsened the existing soil erosion.
That drought and rain was a phenomenon we had not seen before.
I chuckled as the tears escaped my eyes and onto the sides of my face.
The earth used to be green with vegetation, had healthy soil and air to grow plants for food, and animals weren’t becoming extinct. The weather was perfectly balanced and was not a massive threat like it is now. I realised I loved that version of Earth and should’ve joined the fight to maintain it.
I was being suffocated by my guilt and the rubble of my house after last night’s suspected landslide. The rainfall from 5 days ago didn’t stop, I woke up to my ceiling caving in on me as sand and rocks shattered my windows and buried me.
Whilst I laid there praying for someone to find me soon, I could only think about one thing, a “No More Pollution” flyer I came across some years ago. At the bottom it read, “A war with Mother Nature is one we already lost”. Those words replayed in my mind as my eyelids became heavier and I was soon consumed by darkness.
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Read – Dream It Drum It – A Flash Fiction by Joshua Robertson, Ghana
