Status Updates From There's No Place Like Home

The worst part of global warming isn’t all the fear and loss. It’s discomfort.

All of us in the Youngest Generation were stuck. We still sucked our thumbs; we wet the bed. We weren’t moving out. Most of us girls weren’t menstruating. We remained hairless and sweet-smelling. No other kids were coming up behind us, or not enough; we would remain children until we died.

Daddy said prayers would get me nowhere, and Mom agreed with him on that, but if hope ran out as you aged, I would be happy to die young.

Daddy had been so focused on humanity’s rot that he failed to consider what the planet would be like without us. It would go on. It would be beautiful.

Do I have a resilient spirit or am I callous or am I naive?
I probably won’t live long enough to sort it out.

My father’s death wasn’t extraordinary in these times. A husband wasn’t even precious like a baby was. To stop and mourn would have meant disaster. She did not even take the day off.

People read well enough to watch their phones, and that was sufficient.

Daddy said other people handled things differently: they either debated solutions or they pretended nothing was wrong.