Writing

There were Dragons

The mist lifted, and you could see all the cars. Or were they dragons? No, they were just cars. 

 It wasn’t mist, it was just exhaust fumes, there was no romance here, just congestion and pollution. 

 

But imagine, if that wasn’t everything, imagine if there was another layer beyond. 

Layer upon layer upon layer. 

On one of these layers; it is even more congested, people are angrier and sicker because pollution has reached an all-time high. 

Life expectancy is 60 years old.

The ecosystem has been hit hard and the world’s animals are dying out, a new creature extinct every day. Yesterday, the last elephant died. And with each animal that becomes extinct the balance of the world shifts; rivers rise, oceans get closer, ice caps melt.  

 

Tick tock, life expectancy is 59 years old. 

 

Imagine Justice holding her scales, our world in one scale and everything else in the other.  Everything else is closing in and we are disappearing, we can’t balance the scales, we are beyond saving. 

That was the last tortoise and porpoise. 

 

Life expectancy is 58.

 

Volcanoes are erupting, ash is filling the atmosphere and the earth plates are shifting, earthquakes and tsunami are commonplace. 

A massive Tsunami hits Portugal, Mauritania, Morocco and Senegal. They are completely devastated, only 1% of the population survives. 

The last Tiger, anteater and humped back whale are dead. 

 

Life expectancy drops to 51. 

 

Another ice cap melts in Antarctica, Gentoo Penguins are wiped out. Flooding on the French Riveria chases away the rich tourists. When all the dead fish floated onto the best beaches they said, ‘How dare they!' but it was them that dared.

Their oil fields.

Their fracking.

Their consumption.

Their business.

Their fast fashion.

Their want.

Always wanting more.

Then another tropical rainforest disappeared with a nod of the head.

 

‘HOW DARE THEY’. We said. Too late. 

Life expectancy is 47 and all the lions are gone. 

 

The riots start all over the world, anger at the politicians, the rich the powerful, anger at themselves for not being angrier earlier. For not making a stand before it couldn’t change. 

 

An extinction scale event is now inevitable, more tsunami’s more earthquakes, flooding, mudslides and death, so much death the funeral homes can’t cope. Bodies are left on roadsides or in shallow graves that are washed away in floods.  

 

People get sick. There is no clean water, medicine or sanitation. Everywhere is the third world.  

 

The old third world are coping better than us, they are used to managing in difficult situations, they can make fire, and clean water – the first world order are rubbish without Google, how do they know what to do? Word gets around that there are no more puffins.  

 

Electricity stopped working months ago. Chaos and death, no one knows what’s extinct any more, there is no more media, except word of mouth.

Only bad news. Eventually, there is nothing left but decomposing bodies, fire and flood. The world is over, the clouds have combusted, and earth is open to the heavens.  The sky is red, but there are no shepherds delighting. There are no people or animals or world.

Years later, the mist lifted and there were dragons.