Looking Forward - Thinking Back

Blog Hop #61 :  Looking Forward – Thinking Back
Hosted by Daphne Steinberg

The Writer's Post

Snowflakes softly melted on her upturned face sending streaks of liquid across her cheeks almost as though she were crying.  Snowflakes sticking to her long dark eyelashes like dew on the morning grass.  Those large gently falling snowflakes creating a white blanket across the lawn.

Her sister began laughing.  The two girls ran in circles, tongues stuck out and mouths open wide, attempting to catch the fat flakes.  Shortly, they collapsed into piles and began the brisk job of creating snow angles. 

Finally, the snow had begun, it was past the “day of destruction”.  December 21^st, 2012 had come and gone with no noticeable incident, other than the “crazies” who were insistent that the world as we knew it would end.  Those Dooms Day proclamations had become tiresome to the general populous.  The world kept spinning long after their prophecies.  It was the “as we knew it” that most of us didn't quite grasp.

It had been unseasonably warm, with no snow on the ground for Christmas.  Finally, the girls got to play in the snow.  They romped as they plowed through the hip deep drifts, tunneling  a fort out of the ready piled snow. Their rosy cheeks displayed more than just the effect of being outside, they shone seemed to shine. Finally, the cold began to set and they became weary.  Dragging themselves into the house, Mother noticed small round dots on their faces.  They coughed as one often does when coming in from the out of doors, Mother didn’t think much of it. 

After they had been stripped of their outdoors trappings, they were herded into the kitchen for some warm chocolate milk resplendent with miniature marshmallows.  The girls began to scratch at their little round red dots which seemed to grow and began to ooze.

There had been hints, small ones, from the scientific community.  The hints came small because they were overridden by the proverbial shouting of the Doomsdayers.  The Doomsdayers felt the world would spin on its axis.  This spinning would either;  throw everything not attached off the Earth or by virtue of the magnetic poles the climate would abruptly change and alter the Earth, killing all life as we knew it.  Those prophecies played on every television station for months even continuing long after the 21^st had come and gone.

Quietly, the scientific community armed themselves for the “end of days” as they predicted its arrival.  Upon the discovery of the underground caverns in New Mexico, replete with great rooms for animals, some of the scientists began to moved great quantities of food and water into underground facilities.

Those who lived around the Great Lakes noticed a considerable drop in water levels.  Unknown to them, these waters had been diverted to a lined reservoir. 

Mother, thinking it might be either chicken pox or rubolea, put the two girls in a hot bath to “bring it on”.   She scrubbed the two little girls vigorously as red dots erupted into open sores all over the two small bodies.  Soon, Mother  too was coughing with round red sores on her face and body.    

That generation of parents hadn’t heard the cautions of eating the snow.  They had not been old enough to remember the acid rain strong enough to peel the paint from anything left outside.  They were ignorant of the mist that covered the lands just before previous plagues.  The SFI (Santa Fe Institute), a think tank for scientists, they knew.  They hadn’t shouted loudly enough to warn the general populous. 

The Doomsdayer, with their guns and candles, were no match for this plague.  It rained down upon the northern hemisphere as snow.  It leaked into the water systems worldwide within weeks.  Soon, the planets human population was again whittled down to the strong or quick of mind. 

After much deliberation, a detail of survivors have been sent to the surface.  We hope they can pass quickly to the Bio-Dome.  Hope is that vandals had not attacked it.  Hope is that once inside, the people of the detail are not infected from the land and can tunnel back to our underground cavern.  Hope is that soon the Earth will soon become inhabitable on an uncontaminated surface. 

Hope for the future, sorrow for the past.

leigh