The Flying Fish | Teen Ink

The Flying Fish

October 21, 2022
By Cylu728 PLATINUM, Miami, Florida
Cylu728 PLATINUM, Miami, Florida
25 articles 1 photo 6 comments

 I awoke suddenly with a jolt hoping it was all a dream. The good news, it was, the bad, reality was worse. Slowly rolling off my bed, almost too lazy to get out, I landed on my feet. Looking out the window it was the usual, dead plants, animals, and almost no people in sight. I picked up my phone from my night stand to check the weather forecast. The oxygen levels were apparently low enough to be toxic today and in the afternoon we should be expecting some acid rain. After hearing this I went to my closet and rummaged around until I found it, a gas mask. I went to where my door should have been but was instead met with an airlock, the usual. After some beeps and boops of buttons I was outside. Blocking my path immediately was a fallen dead palm tree. Lucky yesterday's acid rain had eroded it so much it wasn’t much more heavy than your average human. Once the tree was thrown to the side I started walking to the beach. This had become my daily routine, I would walk to the beach, look around for any life other than more people, and would then return back home disappointed. Honestly I don’t even know why I still do this, the last time I saw anything breathing at the beach was nearly a decade ago. But I guess it’s just that I want to see something, any sign of proof that the world might recover. Ever since some guy named Roberto invented a machine that could cut down forests worth of trees in mere minutes I knew the world was doomed. One by one each forest on earth slowly disappeared until they were all gone. Ever since the last forest was eradicated the human population decreased to around 50% of what it used to be and the animals were believed to have all gone extinct. Nowadays most people just stay in their houses not risking their lives to go outside. But not me, I’ve tried to plant trees and do my part for this planet but it wasn't enough. Now I was almost at the beach’s shore and I could see the water that was so acidic it would burn you if you touched it. Walking along the coast I could see nothing but dread in the distance. At this point I honestly considered giving up on this daily routine of walking to the beach because each day it just cemented my fears more and more that life really was gone. But then in the distance I saw a splash in the water. Did someone throw something or is it what I think it is? I ran over to the closest part of the beach to the splash location and saw it again. A fish was jumping out of the water over and over to avoid long exposure to it. I stared in awe as the fish jumped and jumped. It had been so long since I last saw a living being that I had kind of forgotten what they looked like. But there was one right here and now to look at all for myself. I sat down and watched as the splashes slowly got smaller and smaller as they faded into the distance. Once I could no longer see the fish I got up and started walking back home. There was still hope for this planet.


The author's comments:

The world has been destroyed by humans and pollution has taken over. All life has almost gone extinct and the world has almost no chance of surviving.


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