1.
The year 2067 is an endless Water War. I am standing in front of what used to be a Pizza Pizza on the corner of Queen and Bathurst, fighting alongside my family, because of course my family is there. I am toothless and my partner’s glasses are so scratched they’re almost useless and our son has made us armour from old license plates. I am defending my ancient sloshing Aquafina water bottle, blocking a knife thrust with M3F 949 MISSOURI.
2.
The year 2067 is finding the raspberries the deer missed. The deer, who make such harrumphs when startled I have named them Aunt Hortense, Aunt Bertha, Nosy Gladys. I cut the raspberries in half to make them last longer and they are somehow better than the brown sugar pavlova I can still remember eating in an actual restaurant with spotless tablecloths. Walls. A ceiling. But mostly human beings. Human beings inhabiting their warm and glorious skin, breathing, walking, words spilling with such careless ease out of their mouths, and I didn’t know then to catch them. To keep them safe.
3.
The year 2067 is underwater. Everyone is a pirate but no one is very good at it.
4.
The year 2067 is when Dorinda Clifton is crowned Tesla Reincarnate of the Celestial Followers of the Lightbulb and on October 5th when New Jersey does not light up light up like thousands upon thousands of stars but instead remains a stubborn pit of darkness where wolves roam without fear, Dorinda is suffocated in mud, quartered, and—it’s rumoured—eaten.
5.
The year 2067 is other people. I’ve been gone a long time.
6.
The year 2067 is made of concrete and everywhere I look there are brutalist buildings where brutalist authorities are brutal and the too-hot rain never stops and I am scrabbling in the gray gutters with the people I love to find enough coins for a two-hour shelter pod and we are all keeping our heads down, down.
7.
The year 2067 is the year the government is definitely going to do something about climate change.
8.
The year 2067 is dreaming of trees, of oak, of spruce, of hickory. Of the rustle leaves make in a storm. Wandering a chimeric forest of beech, of maple, of chestnut, of bumpy bark as I trail my fingers along the trunk and listen to the sparrows sing to the sky. Of kneeling to watch saplings learning the wonders of sunlight and how to drink the rain. And waking, weeping, to the ceaseless sound of wind moving sand. Whish. Wish. Whish.
9.
The year 2067 is the Dorchester Library. I lead murmuring patrons by candlelight into the open centre and urge them to look up to see the five floors lined with glorious walls of words. The computers, useless now, have been carried away and gutted, turned into goldfish bowls and cat beds. I am dressed in layers and layers of wool to guard against the always-cold and at lunch I go outside. In the weak sunlight the park is covered with readers. Wandering through places that don’t exist anymore, telling each other the stories of how to repair. To mend. To leave, this time, nothing but footprints.