Nature Rules - 2022 WATTY'S SHORTLIST

A Step In the Right Direction

We stop for the night off the trail. I use my abilities to fill up the mug a couple of times but we don't dare do anything else. As for food, thankfully I don't have to conjure that up. We eat a few nuts and some chunks of cheese. The goat that scared us earlier would have made a tasty meal. I don't hunt a lot but next time I'll know not to let supper walk on by.

Crinae and I huddle together while resting our tired and dusty legs. We sleep laying on our packs shoved between two boulders. It isn't all that comfortable but we're hidden from other travellers. We're above the low road and below the high road and we can see and hear people coming and going.

The blankets in the kits keep us warm enough. However, they don't keep the sharp edges of the rocks from poking into our sides. Needless to say, neither Crinae nor I have a restful sleep and morning comes much too early.

I yawn. Crinae yawns. We both sit up.

Ouch. I grab at my back. I'm sore from all the walking I did yesterday. Funny, I can climb up and down mountains with heavy buckets of water but as soon I do something different, I'm stiff.

Crinae's feeling it too. She slowly stretches out one leg and then the other. She doesn't complain though. Unlike me.

"I'm aching," I tell her. "Feels like I've climbed 60 mountains already."

Crinae drinks some water that I give her and starts packing her blanket away. I do the same and we both chow down on some nuts. Then we're off.

It's a tough start. My feet aren't moving. I keep stumbling over the stony terrain. Each misstep sends me flying and my palms are my brakes...making direct contact with the ground. I have road rash plus scraped up hands and the blisters that formed yesterday on my heels are giving me lots of grief today. If I didn't know better, I'd think my boots were filled with pins. I have to stop and sit.

"We've got to keep going," mocks Crinae. "No time to lazy around."

"Whatever," I say. But she's right. I had been after her all day yesterday.

"All right," grunts Crinae as she grabs me by the crook of my arm and drags me up. We keep walking and walking and walking. There's nothing to look at but crags and crannies. All brown or orange or beige. Once, at some point in history, this area was renowned for all its snow. A major highway and a railroad used to run through the pass. It connected what was then the province of British Columbia to what was then the province of Alberta.

Provinces, territories, countries – continents, talking about them is outlawed by Sebastian. He decreed we're one culture and one union and one day: one world. He says the names of separate counties and places in different languages keep us apart in our own little "tribes." The GlobalGov society binds us as a single entity: Vesperia. All garbage according to my parents. Mom and Dad made sure we knew our history though and taught us their own curriculum. Otherwise, we wouldn't have any idea why Canada is the way it is today.

"Know the past and you won't make the same mistakes in the future," Dad told us.

It seems to me humans have always known the past but as far as I know, humans keep repeating the same mistakes anyway. War to famine to genocide: over and over again. There are examples every day of the past being relived in the present. Even I can see that and I'm not supposed to because I was born into the one world, one nation mentality.

Enough of that.

Charred sticks and holes were there used to be burnt trees dot the landscape. Settlers gather the charcoal remains to burn in their braziers. The monotony of the road is making me retreat into my head. I have never known another earth except for this one and arguing with myself over past rights and wrongs isn't helping. I wish things were different.