creative writing on environmental justice
The 𐓏𐓘𐓓𐓘𐓓𐓟1 were a sky people first before we came down to the Earth to begin a new life. One dawn, a week before 𐒻𐒼𐓂2 went into the hospital, we faced east and watched a pillar of white smoke reach up into the stratosphere. The rocket was carrying some of us up to become sky people again. If 𐒻𐒼𐓂 . . .
The donor—Cleo—lived in one of those Seattle neighborhoods where you couldn’t rent basement units anymore, so Sylvie pulled her clear plastic overshoes over her loafers before she even got out of her Uber. On the sidewalk, brackish water that smelled of mud and seaweed sloshed over her toes. The grinding whirr of industrial sump pumps rumbled up through her . . .
Of course the planes weren’t going to explode on their way to JFK. But we liked watching them just in case.
“Don’t you remember on 9-11, how they said that the buildings were bombed?” King asked.
“You remember 9-11?” King had that look in his green eyes, dreamy yet determined, that I’d known since high school. The look when he declared that mushrooms were fertilized . . .
The landlord held out a gun. Shara took it from him. She was doing the mother shtick, which meant playing the protector. The landlord didn’t know she was only six years older than me. He might rescind his offer if he knew I was a homeless orphan.
Next he presented us with an axe. “The rifle is for rats,” he said. He’d spray-tanned his face, drawing a yellow line under . . .
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 . . .
I moved to Florida from Wisconsin when I was ten, but Curtis “Wild Hair” Kensington had been born there. I remember him running across the vacant lots, shirtless with his chaotic hair flying, his skin red from the sun in those pre-sunscreen days. His feet were so tough from going barefoot that the sandspurs that pained the rest of us bounced from the callused soles . . .
Bruce is seventeen feet long and would’ve weighed around two tons when he was murdered by a trophy hunter. Killing rare creatures for sport is supposed to be a relic of the past now that most of the world’s wild animals are some level of endangered. But for some, the desire to prove something runs deeper than the fear of punishment. Thanks to a bartender’s tip about . . .
It was Bobby’s last wish to be composted and spread over their vegetable patch above the Yellow River, just a couple of miles upstream of its confluence with the Mississippi. They grew peas, eggplant, tomatoes there; firm, tasty lettuce, cauliflower, and kale; even a patch of wheat that yielded symbolic amounts of flour, but that Bobby had been passionate about. . . .
The fish eagle catches an updraft on its outstretched wings, momentarily becoming invisible in the glare of the sun, before diving to emerge from the glittering sea with a wriggling fish in its talons. The group of tourists collectively gasps at the display, raising phones and squinting at the cloudless sky. Their photos will be overexposed, the majestic alabaster . . .
“How often does it happen, lad? You’ll never see another in your lifetime.”
The driver of the cart had not stopped talking since he’d found the boy, hot and alone, on the side of the road. The boy had the impression that he had never actually started talking, that he had been born with words tumbling out of his mouth and evaporating into the desert air.
“Once in a lifetime, . . .