The Five Acre Forest

A look at the future.

The Five Acre Forest

"Mommy, it's so beautiful! What is that fluttering on the branch? Is that a bird?"
She pulled his outer garment up around his shoulders. It wouldn't do for him to get a chill. It was wonderful watching her little son breathing without his oxygen tank. Oxygen Insufficiency Syndrome, OIS--the curse of so many of the little ones in this generation; too little oxygen in the normal atmosphere now for the children to breathe easily. She knew she might be seeing the last of the human race--infants, toddlers and children who would probably not make it to adulthood; dying almost as soon as they were born.
Anxiously, she glanced behind her. If they were caught in the Five Acre Preserve, she would be executed and Robbie would be put in a Children's Home. Was that a keeper, or--a squirrel? She had only seen them in books, but the funny little creature scurrying up the trunk of the tree could be nothing else. She laughed, as it chattered at her. All she had known for her entire lifetime had been the cold, stark buildings and the last of humanity--sick, limping people, grimacing as they traveled from ventilated dwelling to dwelling, trying to choke oxygen out of the listless air.
It began before her generation. Five hundred years before her time the last of the rain forests were harvested; huge green trees with atmosphere so wet you could suck water right out of the air. They were very different from the lovely tree into whose branches she peered right now, but they were life. She smiled as a little breeze tickled their senses.
How They screamed about the energy it required to keep everything as it had been on this small patch of land. Very few won the International lottery required to visit it, held only once every five years. Her little Robbie would never live that long. He would be gone before the next one.
"Look! Mommy, look!" She watched as her child ran toward the squat-winged creature that hopped out of reach, and then flew away.
"That was a bird, Hon. I think red ones are called 'Cardinals.' She had studied the books to know what to expect.
They wanted to close the Preserve. The energy used to maintain the bubble that allowed it to remain as it had been for many centuries could run one hundred children's hospitals, she was told. How could she justify the waste? What could she answer? That it was a small cost for hope? That they must remember? That their children who did survive needed a reason to live?
"Angel, we have to go." If she hurried, they could escape out the back as the shifts changed, and maybe they could make it back someday. "Hurry! Hide in this burlap bag and let me push you out in the wheelbarrow!" The old farm implement was still used to carry supplies within the little area. "Don't forget your oxygen tank." How it hurt to know that in a few minutes he would not be able to breathe without it.
Tonight they would dream, and the dreams would be enough. They would laugh remembering the squirrel, the sound of the brook running through the middle of the little forest, and the sweet, sweet air, created by trees. They would know what life had been�"before.

by Mari Sloan
copyright October, 2010

Reviews

[Samuel Dickens]

My first thought was to label this sci-fi, but we both know this kind of bleak, disagreeable future is likely to be actual. We're apt to laugh at someone who saws off the limb they sit on, but what's happening to our environment is no less ludicrous. This is well-written and hard-hitting, Mari. (It's great to see you here!)

[Mari Sloan]

:-) I've just retired from my "day job," and it's time to get back into writing. Thank you for your review, Sam. Today's political climate is grim, as is its forecast.