Hope a History of the Future Read online

  No one but Grandmother remembered these creatures, but most had seen the pictures in the Hall of the Ancient Ones, next to the Hall of Records. They were framed alongside the condors, with their mighty wingspans, and the white bear, fabled to have lived on something hard and cold called ice. Pictures were all that remained of many animals and plants.

  “Lots of fish swam in the ocean near our home. We caught them in nets and hauled them into our boats to eat and sell. The sky above was deep blue. White clouds gathered in the afternoons and gentle rains fell, washing the green leaves so they sparkled when the sun came back out.

  “My family farmed and hunted. We grew rice and taro. Papa and my older brothers tracked wild boars. We gathered ripe fruits from the trees. I would stand on the ground as my brothers climbed up and dropped mangoes and papayas down for me to catch. Sometimes I didn’t catch them and they fell to the earth and broke open, revealing their juicy orange flesh and black seeds.

  “Back then my island had many thousands of birds. At dawn’s light they would begin to sing. I remember lying in bed as a child listening to them through the open window of the little room I shared with my sister. The birds would perch in the thick leaves of the green trees outside and call to one another that the day was beginning.

  “In The Time Before, people on my island laughed. Food was plentiful and life was good. But there was also fighting and arguing—especially just before the end.

  “Then The Great Change came. It happened slowly at first, like the coming of dusk.

  “My small island became hotter, the waters warmer. My family began to stay inside during the day to escape the worst of the heat. We waited for the sun to go down so we could go outside again. My older brothers and my sister and I began to sleep outdoors under the tree in our yard. That is my first memory of the stars. I peeked up at them and they back at me between the dancing leaves and branches that swayed in the evening breeze. We would all lie together under the tree—our heads in a circle, our feet pointed in four directions like a compass. My siblings would tell stories until my eyes grew heavy. As sleep overcame me, I would nestle close to my sister, making us not quite a perfect compass any longer.

  “Sometimes hard rains came unexpectedly, driving us indoors. My family huddled in the dark as a fury of wind roared in through the cracks around the windows. My grandfather sat in a corner and prayed.

  “Floods began to wash away hillsides. Windstorms ripped roofs off of neighbors’ houses and toppled trees. Long periods without rain would follow.

  “After too many months with no rain, the trees and plants began to change. The silversword plants in our yard, with their soft green-gray leaves, shriveled and then simply were no more. Some of the trees put out great fruits, and the people thought this was a good omen. They did not understand that this was the trees’ last effort at life.

  “High tides crept into low fields. Shorelines started to erode. But it was only when the beautiful seaside houses began to wash away that the rich and powerful took notice. The water that came out of the faucet in our kitchen no longer tasted sweet and good.”

  Looking up from the pages in front of her, Joyce remembered the date on the first page of the book. Was it possible that the story she was reading was true—that it was really the story of someone from the future who was alive during something called “The Time Before” and who had lived through something else called “The Great Change”?

  Disturbed, she shut the book. She hoped this wasn’t the future. But the way the book had come to her—falling out of nowhere and onto her library floor—had her spooked. What if it really is from the future?

  She shook the thought out of her head. There are other things to do, she reminded herself. I’ll go out for a short walk. Make up for that cigarette. Forget about this book.

  She wrote a note for Grace, opened the door to her room, and soundlessly left it next to her on the bedside table. Plato slipped into the bedroom behind her. He jumped up onto the bed and curled at Grace’s feet.

  Joyce shut the door tightly on her way out as she told herself, I won’t be gone too long.

  Chapter 2:

  THE BOOK OF GRACE

  Grace reached for her glasses on the bedside table and held up the note:

  Back soon. Out for a walk.

  —MOM.

  Plato watched with one brow lifted above a green eye as she got up to go to the kitchen. Grace could almost but not quite reach the cupboard over the sink. She pushed a stool against the counter and stepped up to get a glass. She filled it with water and took a long drink. The house was quiet. Everyone was gone.

  When she returned to her room, Plato was still on her bed, but he was curled on top of a large purple book. That’s weird, she thought; she hadn’t noticed it there on her way to the kitchen. She couldn’t imagine where it had come from.

  Maybe Mom left it for me to read. Well, I need something to do anyway, she figured. She wasn’t allowed electronics if she was missing school. She nudged Plato off the book. “The History of the World” was written in large letters across the cover.

  Grace liked school—well, mostly. She liked her fourth-grade teacher, and he liked history. And her mom had been a history major in college. As many times as they moved, they always packed the boxes of history books and brought them along.

  Maybe this book came from one of those boxes.

  When she was younger, before she could read herself, her father had often skipped to the end of the books he was reading to her. So, like him, she frequently started books at the back, too. She opened the big book on her bed toward the end.

  Plato touched his cold black nose to Grace’s arm, sending a small shiver down her spine. As she started to read, he settled down on the pillow next to her and began to purr.

  In the spring of 2142, the world prepared to celebrate one hundred years of peace. Le stepped off the boat as it silently docked alongside the wharf. Its solar-powered engines shut down. The large white sails that collected energy were already furling automatically into place. The flag of the world, the round image of Earth from space, floated in the breeze. It was the enduring symbol of the oneness of humanity and the shared commitment to stewardship of the earth.

  Le had taken a vow of austerity, the same vow all public representatives took. But the basket she was carrying was still heavy. It contained documents and a few personal items, but the most important things Le carried were in her heart and mind. The documents in her basket were light in comparison to her words. As a Speaker, she was practiced in the art of remembering details. Her early work as a Keeper of stories had helped train her already-keen mind. Sometimes she wished she could forget things—it would be easier.

  As Le walked down the long wharf, her indigo robe fluttered open, revealing the talking stick tucked into her belt. Stepping to the ground, she knelt alongside the other travelers. She was greeted by volunteers, young and old, who were moving among the new arrivals like honeybees. They were passing out water for the little ceremonies taking place all around her. Copies of the Universal Bill of Rights and Responsibilities were being handed out too, for those not already carrying them. A young volunteer offered Le both. She smiled and gestured her gratitude, but she only accepted the water. She was already carrying a special copy of the Universal Bill of Rights and Responsibilities—the same copy she had carried with her for over thirty years.

  Kneeling on the ground, Le placed her talking stick in front of her. She poured a little of the water out onto the earth where she knelt. “To which we all belong,” she said simply.

  Then she repeated the words she had said so many times, words that were being echoed around her by the other new arrivals:

  Water, water, cleanse my mind,

  Make me peaceful, make me kind.1

  Water, water, cleanse my soul,

  Make me peaceful, make me whole.

  She drank a little of the water. It tasted fresh and clean and quenched her thirst. Replacing the stopper, she added the bot
tle to her basket and waited, still kneeling, as was the custom.

  An old gentleman wearing a golden armband approached her. He supported himself on a long talking stick of finely decorated wood with elaborately carved symbols. The handle of the staff was shiny from age and use. His eyes were folded in deep pockets beneath his brow, but the centers blazed with light. His broad nose rose like a mountain from the placid plane of his kindly face. His large ears seemed to tune into everything around him. Le had a fleeting thought that she had met him before. There was something familiar about him.

  “Welcome,” he gestured.

  Still kneeling, Le offered her talking stick to him with both hands. Offering a talking stick in this manner in a new community was a sign of peaceful intent and informed the hosts about the traveler.

  The old man looked closely at the symbols as he ran his weathered hands over the talking stick’s engraved surface. A large cat with a tail in the shape of a question mark wound itself around his feet.

  As he returned the talking stick to Le, he introduced himself: “My name is Gaylord. May peace and love be with you.” His fingers moved gracefully through the gestures, despite his age.

  The cat now rubbed against Le, seemingly echoing the old gentleman’s greeting.

  “I am Le,” she said, rising and offering her hand.

  Gaylord took her hand gently and placed it on the outside of his robe just over his heart, averting his eyes. In turn, she took his hand and guided it to rest on her cloak, just above her own heart, beating faster at the touch of a stranger.

  She noted Gaylord’s pulse remained steady, quietly keeping rhythm inside the cage of his ribs. He wore a look of patient serenity. They stood together waiting for her pulse to slow, in this long important moment of nonaction. Gradually, her heart returned to a normal beat—the universally understood signal to raise their eyes and meet again, but this time no longer as the strangers they were moments earlier.

  Gaylord’s long gray hair and beard were neatly trimmed and bound. Had he been standing completely upright, Le would have had to look up to see his face. But age had brought him closer to the earth. He appeared to be in a perpetual motion of bowing with gratitude. Le speculated that he was very old. Perhaps even born sometime during The Great Change.

  Grace’s door opened. Her mother poked her head in.

  “How are you feeling, sweetie? I brought you some crackers and … where did you get that book? Her mom asked, in a voice Grace noticed was a note higher than normal.

  “It was on my bed. I thought you left it for me.”

  The color ran out of her mother’s face as she hurried over and set the crackers and tea on the bedside table before taking the book and abruptly closing the cover.

  “You need your rest, and this isn’t going to help you get any.”

  She carried the heavy book to the dresser near the door, then went back to feel her daughter’s forehead.

  “You’re still warm.”

  She got a wet washcloth and laid it across Grace’s brow.

  “This will help cool you off. I’ll check in on you a little later.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  Grace gratefully slid down in bed. The wet ends of the washcloth dripping onto her pillow made a cool spot for her to rest her hot cheeks.

  Joyce tackled the big book on the dresser and carried it out of the room with her. She shut the door behind her and leaned her head back against the outside of the door in the hallway.

  How did this book get in there? she wondered.

  She eyed Plato, who was gazing up at her.

  “Did you have something to do with this?” she asked the cat.

  Plato just stared at her and twitched his tail from side to side, ticktock, ticktock, in rhythm with the grandfather clock she could hear innocently marking time in the library.

  ___________________

  1. These lines have been attributed to the musician Hamza El Din, but after due diligence the author was unable to confirm their source.

  Chapter 3:

  ALONE

  Joyce carried the strangely heavy book down the hall, back to the library. Plato followed her. She put the book on the table next to the old leather chair, near the grandfather clock that continued to swing its tail, ticktock, ticktock, giving time the illusion of a predictable beat.

  A half dozen books sat patiently on the table next to the big book. Joyce glanced at them—a light romantic novel from a favorite author, an older best-selling murder mystery, three books of nonfiction. She’d been plowing through them like rich soil.

  She needed to get to work reading online. But she had a second secret in life: she really only loved reading real books—books printed on paper. There was something about the feel of paper. She liked the smell of books and the weight of words. In an increasingly digitized world, they offered her a kind of retreat. Real books weren’t always convenient. Yet walking into a room filled with them, she felt like she was walking into a room occupied by interesting old friends. Against her better judgment, she opened the big book again and began to read where she had left off.

  Grandmother looked out at the people arriving to hear her story.

  “Papa said our well was being invaded by the sea. I remember carrying my tin cup in my hand while balancing a plastic jug on my head to carry water. Grandfather stayed home, but the rest of my family ventured up into the high hills to a secret spring. My mother carried my little brother, Ammah, at the front of the thin line. My older brothers and my sister and I all walked behind her. My father, at the very back, swept our footprints away so others wouldn’t follow. I didn’t know better then, but still, even now, I think of our neighbors that died from lack of fresh water, and I am sad for my part in that.”

  Grandmother began to beat the drum again, this time like a pulsing heart. Boom boom, boom boom …

  “People began abandoning cars along the roads. I remember riding in one once. It went very fast. Everything went fast then. I have strange memories of giant shining machines that flew in the sky, leaving long tails of white clouds behind them. They were noisy, but not in the pleasant way of birds. They roared and I covered my ears.

  “People waited at the docks. Long lines began to form whenever a boat or a barge arrived. Sometimes quarrels broke out among the people waiting. Then the supply barges stopped coming altogether.

  “We were dependent upon the barges for many supplies: flour, sugar, paper, salt, cookies that came in packages wrapped in plastic that crinkled when I stole one from the bag in the kitchen. I was not always a good girl.

  “Soon our fields were inundated with seawater. All the cars were abandoned, and in time they rusted over. They became home to the rats that my older brothers chased when food became so scarce.

  “I remember Papa in one of our fields, only a few green shoots coming up around him, most of the crop turned to useless brown slime. He hung his head down and dropped to his knees in the putrid-smelling mud, covering his face with it as he wept.”

  The drumbeat stopped.

  “That is when my first family began to die. My grandfather passed first. He refused to eat, saying he had already had more than his share. I remember gathering around his bed. We took turns sitting with him. One day when I was alone with him, playing quietly on the floor with a doll so as not to disturb him, he opened his eyes.

  “Looking at me, he whispered, ‘I am so sorry … please forgive me.’ I have often thought of his words and what he might have been sorry for. He died later that same day.”

  Grandmother paused. Le’s hands paused as well, waiting for her to continue.

  “I heard talk that this was occurring not just on my small island but everywhere, the world over. Though at the time I didn’t know about any world other than my own.

  “The tree in our backyard no longer danced in the starlit sky. The leaves, like us, lay scattered at its feet.

  “One day, Papa did not return from our fields. We never found out what happened to him. But
now without him, there was even less help for me and my mother, my brothers, and my sister. My sister had brown doe-like eyes and long dark hair that she wore braided down her back like a thick rope. The neighbors told us she waded out into the water and simply sank below the surface. She must have had no will to live after Papa was gone and my two older brothers were killed in an argument with a villager over food gone missing.”

  The drum lay silent in Grandmother’s hands while a faraway look lingered on her face, but soon she began to beat the drum again.

  “The people that remained dug holes for the dead. But the rising seas soon covered the graves. As more and more people died, we simply took them to the water’s edge and let them float away on the outgoing tides. My last brother, Ammah, just a toddler, was my only sibling left. I used to dress him and play with him, pretending he was my baby. In the final days of my first family, he grew very quiet, no longer a smiling, chubby boy-child. The life went out of his eyes first.

  “Ammah’s face was hollow, though his stomach was bloated. No more giggles, no more games. He lay still in my mother’s arms like a limp doll. His gaze was vacant, as if he were already no longer of this world. There was nowhere for us to take him for help. The health clinic had closed months before—there were no supplies to stock it, no people left to run it. He stopped eating the small spoonfuls of food my mother and I offered him. We dipped our fingertips in water and rubbed them against his cracking lips.

  “My mother rocked him for three days, wetting his hot brow with her tears. He was so small, his arms as thin as the bare branches we sat beneath. On the last day, in the late-afternoon heat, she rocked him back and forth … back and forth … back … forth … back. She came to a complete stop. My mother and I were all that remained of our family.”

  The drumming had reached a crescendo and then fallen silent, as if it, too, had struggled for life and lost.