“Okay, this is what we prepared for people. Get your go bags, we can’t stay here any longer. We need to get to higher ground immediately. Go, go, go! The first barrier has broken, we cannot wait any longer. We need to move.” Yoda hadn’t seen security make such a serious evacuation attempt in a long time. She had only been five last time a dike had broken. All she remembered was the fear in people’s eyes as they rushed to try and find somewhere safe. She now recognized that look in her brother’s eyes. Had another dike been breached, or was it far worse? And why didn’t her brother tell them what was going on?
She hadn’t even been born the last time an outer dam of the country had collapsed. She had heard her parents’ evacuation stories, but she never seriously considered it would happen in her lifetime. The last official government-funded dam was drawing its last breath. It was the only thing standing between them and the ever-rising sea. She remembered visiting it once with her parents when she was younger. It had been a strange sight, such a massive construction, with the high water on one side and low on the other. Full of wonder she watched the scene before her, how could such a massive body of water be held back by just one wall? That afternoon she sat on the dike with her little brother watching the water seep through the cracks that had already started to appear years ago. She remembered how it looked in pain, like it was weeping and sorry for what it was going to do to everyone that depended upon it. Sad at not being able to fulfil its life goal…
Up until now they had been able to live with the consequences of the rising water in the inlands by raising the dikes and putting emergency protocols in place. There was no pumping back the water anymore, not since the turbines got clogged by sediment and packed up working altogether. No one knew how to repair them. She knew when they reached the next tipping point the first dike would overflow, or worse. It would not be enough to protect them any longer. They had to get to higher ground, behind the second layer of dike protection. Was this it? Had they reached the tipping point? Would this be the moment the first dike gave way? Something inside her felt off. Wasn’t the government supposed to calm people down instead of rushing them into leaving? They had practiced the evacuations often enough and usually they were joking around while telling everyone to remain calm and find the exits, before gathering at the safe meeting point.
Yoda was so deep in her thoughts when she heard her brother screaming “Yoda we have to go!” She felt a pull on her arm. “Bambino, why are you here? You shouldn’t be here” she shouted. “You weren’t outside Yo, I came back for you.” She thought to herself that she must have zoned out. “Do you have any idea what’s going on? ” she said. “We have to get to a safe point first, I’ll explain later.”
She began to see random people running through an empty corridor of an empty market that her parents told her was once their home decades ago. She was sad because she had to leave all her life here behind. This would be the end of an era and the start of a new one. This was more than just the first wave, she thought, Bambino wouldn’t make such a fuss if it was just the first barrier overflowing or even breaking. That would leave them with wet feet at most. He knew more, he had to. He was the best watcher they had, and his intuition was usually right. He must have picked up on something or seen something coming when he was keeping watch around the dam area in the last few weeks. She had tears in her eyes remembering all the days spent with her friends and neighbours enjoying the area they called home. She knew that this time would be very different, and that lots of lives would be destroyed. Watching everyone getting evacuated in their desperate search for safety made her sad and angry at the same time. “It’s all our fault, we destroyed our planet, it’s just a result of our lack of care, ” Yoda said while running with her brother and looking back at the huge number of people heading to the safe place her brother told her about.
She zoned out for a few minutes. When they arrived at the point she was amazed to see so many people already there and wondered how long she had zoned out for not noticing them all running together. Once there, they were briefed on the safety procedures and were told they were supposed to follow a route that would lead them to a mountain they would need to climb to stay safe, and only there would they be safe.
On hearing this she was shocked and looked at her brother: “Climb they said? Is he serious?” gesturing towards her big bag. Bambino tried to comfort her, “I got you Yoda, just trust me”. They spent a few minutes on the route, terrified, watching everyone escape for survival. Both she and Bambino were not good at climbing, they had never done it before and would never have imagined that one day they would have to leave their home and escape to the mountain.
Bambino was beside her on a small piece of rock protruding out from the mountain wall. His big hands were between her back and the bag she had now strapped around both shoulders like a backpack. He pushed her in the back, making her belly graze the surface of the rocky wall. “Just one more, you can do this,” he encouraged her. “I just can't, it's too high for me” she sighed while reaching up as high as she could, standing on the tips of her toes. “Put your left foot on my knee and push yourself up. Then grab the top rock and I’ll push you up further.” She followed his instructions and slowly lifted her leg. She placed her foot on his knee, then pushed herself upward. It was just enough to reach a higher rock. She took a slow deep breath and pulled herself higher to the top of the rock.
Bambino tried to reach her, but her hand slipped, and he stayed shaking on the mountainside looking for something to hold on so that he could reach the rock. ‘“Bambino!!!!” she screamed, her eyes full of tears. He stretched to reach her and fell, but the backpack saved him. He was hurt but he was able to try again and reach the top of the rock.
By the time they reached the top it was almost night, but she could still make out the sadness and fear in people’s eyes. Yoda felt hopeless because she knew that this small mountain wouldn’t hold all the people coming. The water had started to come crashing down and she knew people would be dying already as the country began to be destroyed. All they could see were people and the remains of houses being swept along with the waterfall.
All she could hear was the scream of people asking for help, crying to their siblings. It was a tragic scene she could never have imagined, even though her parents had told her about what they experienced decades ago, but this time she knew it was worse. She was trying to look at Bambino and to see if he was feeling better as he was injured. He began to lose consciousness and she started screaming to wake him up.
During the night she observed a light from a far away that seemed like an island between the two mountains, she started at it for a while and then she asked: “Where are those lights coming from? Is there somewhere where life is still normal? Do we have a chance to go somewhere else and start it over?” An old man suddenly replied to her question: “It’s heaven city, it’s a city that rich people built and established decades ago as somewhere to run to when life is no longer possible here, it’s the safest place far from any danger. The water won’t be so high there, they’re living their best life, we can’t get there darling”. Yoda didn’t respond, she remained frozen, staring at everyone and every detail she could see, thinking about her previous life. She then pressed the old man for more details. “What is it like there? And why have we never heard about it?” She asked. “Your generation doesn’t know about it but I’m sure your parents do. It’s like another world there, everything is perfect. The nature is amazing, everything you need is readily available, and life is easy… But, as I told you, it’s only for rich people. They made sure that it’s the safest and best place to live”, replied the old man. “Why did you tell us we couldn’t reach it? Is it that difficult to get in? Who protects it? Do they have a leader?” Yoda continued. She was curious and in her mind the heaven city was the only way to escape. “Darling, this place is crawling with guards, it is full of them. Years ago, they told us that nobody was allowed to go near it. If you’re not rich, then you can only dream of living there, their leader is an arrogant person, and everyone’s scared of him. As soon as you get near the city, you’re dead.” “Do you know it that well? Could you lead us? We can’t stay here, we need to try”, Yoda said with determination. Bambino seemed convinced by the idea of her sister and said: “Yes, she’s right, we should at least we give it a try, maybe we’ll find a way out.”
Yoda spent the night thinking about how they could reach the heaven island. She woke her brother up and told him that they needed to find it. “The water seems calmer now, the old man told me it’s not that far so we can swim there. Just trust me, if we stay here, we’ll die.” She convinced him to follow her and asked the old man to come with them. While going down to the water she explained the plan: “We need to try this, once we arrive, I'll distract the guards watching the area and Bambino, you’ll find us some of their clothes or whatever so that we won't be noticed when we get in the water”.
They swam for hours. The old man was so tired that he gave up at the end. Yoda helped her brother to keep going. They spent the whole day swimming and fighting the strong currents. The more they swam, the closer the light got to them. They became more and more excited and hopeful; they didn’t yet know that this island too had succumbed to the water and that this would be the end.
Yoda thought she saw someone, she whispered to Bambino to hide in the water but when she took a look around her she saw people drawing all around and the island she was dreaming to reach was now floating in the water and no one was there, nearly everyone was dead.
The water and the place around smelt salty. Like a childhood memory, when you’re too far from the sea to see the water but you can already smell the change in the air. The only difference is that this smell was now mixed with a lot of other smells: dirt, blood, bodies, death, it disturbs and confuses you, you can't breathe and feel the end of all what you’ve ever dreamed of.
Bambino was trying to hold her hand and talked to her as Yoda began to zone out again. But Yoda was shocked so she couldn’t hear a thing or understand what was going on. She looked at everything around her and remembered the place where it had all started. The place she had once called her home. All around her was destroyed and her heaven city was floating with all that built it, even people.