between fact and fiction

dystopian cinderella

If only I could reach the water's edge.

I edged closer, closer, closer...until the force pulled me backwards again.

This wouldn't do—the photo was lost forever. My only memory of my father, drifted away to sea, never to be seen again. It had been a tough time without him, as I had to earn my keep to stay in my stepmother's lavish mansion.

I stepped out again, this time sliding my foot so that it could almost touch the sand—the sand that was half covered by plastic bags and dead, rotting fish. A sharp twinge of pain shot up my leg, and I hissed in pain. I dropped to my knees, and stared with hollow eyes at the monstrosity before me.

The last few decades had been nothing short of chaos, and the pollutants had finally ruined all the bodies of natural water on Earth. The chemicals from the waste had all but rotted the sea's biodiversity and had killed off many land, sky and marine animals. To make matters worse, it was tearing away at the ozone layer and atmosphere of the Earth. The government came up with the perfect solution: put a barrier around all the oceans, seas, lakes...any body of water they could find. That would stop us from inhaling the toxins the pollutants emitted and shield us from the harsh reality of our moribund planet. Honestly, everyone knew about it, who were they hiding this truth from?

As the water quality conditions became worse, we could only drink nasty concoctions of 'artificial water', derived from purified rain, and eat 'artificial food', another innocuous but enervating thing to keep us barely alive. And boy, was the water expensive—the poor descended into utmost poverty and the rich were living an effortless life, no doubt pouring even more of their waste from banquets and festivities into the incurable oceans. There was no in between in Earth's society—you were either filthy rich or hopelessly malnourished, without a single penny in your pocket.

Scientists and experts said that there was still hope for the planet, but we knew that investigations and expeditions were being made in order to secure a habitable planet lest we died along with ours. Then we would be forced to evacuate our planet, a place we had called home for almost two billion years.

We only had ourselves to blame. It had started with mankind, anyway, and our foolish actions had caused us pain more than success or accomplishment.

There I was, staring with anguish as the photo drifted away, away, away into the murkiness of the contaminated oceans. My lips started trembling, and I bit on them fiercely. I could cry—just not now. The situation that we lived in was grim, and my world had just gotten many shades darker.

I wanted to research, to explore, to help the world be rid of all this junk in the ocean so that at least a little sliver of hope could be cast upon people living on Earth. Father applauded me for my selflessness and told me he would support me in every way possible, and it was delightful that I wanted to follow in his footsteps to make sure that even if we left Earth, we tried our best to solve our problems before evacuating. My stepmother simply sniffed at me and frowned incredulously, "Why would you even bother to clean up others' mistakes before you've fixed yours?"

It was the water that had sparked my dreams as well as crushed them. Father had vanished on an expedition in the hazardous oceans to try and salvage what was left of the waters.

"Cinderella! Stop staring at the godforsaken water. Get back to the mansion—we have guests coming over and the grand staircase has to be spotless!" my stepmother barked.

I scurried back in the direction of my house–not even a home, a home where I felt loved and cared for, but not before taking one last look at the sea. I bowed my head and said goodbye to Father, still holding back sobs.