With This World, We Must Not Forget
When the Thwaites glacier thawed, the news prattled
about how stock in plastic water bottles fell,
until the ocean swelled and consumed New York's precious
walls and streets and buyback sheets,
and suddenly money became landlocked states,
safe from the hunger of warming places.
Then the plague spread, an elder god awakened from glacial stasis,
a virus with no concern for social distance.
People ignored it for an egregious time,
till almost every family had been forced to pay their fine.
They cried out then, but it was too late. They huddled at the gates
of withering cities, the ocean slithering ever nearer - and oh, the sun!
It pounded down like a wild thing, angry and heavy.
No offering would sate its gaze, no yachts, hedge funds,
or cultish praise could avert its rage!
CEOs and waitresses, it made no distinctions,
The firenadoes swirled over all,
a benediction to human eviction.
By then, people finally paid real attention.
We know, because they thought to carve their histories in stone,
in caves, deep underground. That's where we found out
about Thwaites, and the plague, and the sun, and that's why
we run our world differently now - we tend to its cries -
we feed it, and speak gently, and ask for consent,
like how we would ask a cat before trying to pet it.
For we don't just live on this world,
but with this world, and that we must not forget.
about how stock in plastic water bottles fell,
until the ocean swelled and consumed New York's precious
walls and streets and buyback sheets,
and suddenly money became landlocked states,
safe from the hunger of warming places.
Then the plague spread, an elder god awakened from glacial stasis,
a virus with no concern for social distance.
People ignored it for an egregious time,
till almost every family had been forced to pay their fine.
They cried out then, but it was too late. They huddled at the gates
of withering cities, the ocean slithering ever nearer - and oh, the sun!
It pounded down like a wild thing, angry and heavy.
No offering would sate its gaze, no yachts, hedge funds,
or cultish praise could avert its rage!
CEOs and waitresses, it made no distinctions,
The firenadoes swirled over all,
a benediction to human eviction.
By then, people finally paid real attention.
We know, because they thought to carve their histories in stone,
in caves, deep underground. That's where we found out
about Thwaites, and the plague, and the sun, and that's why
we run our world differently now - we tend to its cries -
we feed it, and speak gently, and ask for consent,
like how we would ask a cat before trying to pet it.
For we don't just live on this world,
but with this world, and that we must not forget.
Emmie Christie’s work includes practical subjects, like feminism and mental health, and speculative subjects, like unicorns and affordable healthcare. She has been published in various short story markets including Daily Science Fiction, Infinite Worlds Magazine, and Flash Fiction Online. She graduated from the Odyssey Writing Workshop in 2013. You can find her at www.emmiechristie.com or on Twitter @EmmieChristie33.