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Imagine 2200, Fix's climate fiction contest, recognizes stories that envision the next 180 years of equitable climate progress, imagining intersectional worlds of abundance, adaptation, reform, and hope. Read the 2022 collection here.
The Northwest Connector took you across the Georgia state line and into the Panhandle. Cora was headed to Crawfordville, the county seat of Wakulla County. She didn't know where the other folks were headed. There were only a few of them anyways, and they all sat near the back. The driver had left the air conditioner on, and cool air played across her forehead. The people behind her chatted away. She didn't know what they were talking, but they were Black like her. Haitians probably.

The other buses weren't like this little church one; they were the long Greyhound kind. It made sense: keep the big buses for the people willing to dig Naples out of the Everglades or pump seawater out of Miami. As far as Cora was concerned, there was no point going south of Gainesville until the rest of the state got itself together.

A woman holding a clipboard was talking to the driver. They both stood outside the bus. The driver turned away from her to climb the first step. His finger punched the air in front of his eyes.

"Six passengers," Cora said.

"Heading out in 10 minutes," the driver said, as if she hadn't said anything. "If any of you need to go to the bathroom, this your last chance. The roads there ain't nothing but bumpy."

A tall, heavyset woman stood after he said this, smoothing her T-shirt over her stomach. She started toward the door with a shuffled gait that told Cora she was wearing mules or house slippers. Those wouldn't last a week in Florida; the coral rock would rip them right off her feet. The packing list recommended hiking boots. Long, lightweight pants. Sunscreen. A long-sleeved lightweight shirt, visors, hats. Cora had all that, even though growing up she had never paid attention to those precautions. It was always hot in northern Florida, and she was already Black. What was supposed to happen to her? A tan?

She'd packed the shirt the program had given her too, the same one the woman was wearing as she followed the bus driver into the depot. Florida Re-Wilder, the front said. A Better Second Chance, the back read. Cora's shirt was balled up inside her purse next to her wallet, keys, and the check, which they said she could exchange for goods at the Encampment Site. Cora unhooked her sunglasses from her tank top. The world was briefly, blessedly pink. She closed her eyes.

The door creaked open. Feet shuffled to the back, and there was a burst of laughter as the woman sat again. The driver cleared his throat over the intercom.

"Good morning. Today is Tuesday, July 18. You are on the Northwest Connector," he said. "We crossing over Georgia into Florida territory. I got six passengers and three stops to make. Estimated travel time is 16 hours. If you gotta go ..." Here, he laughed uproariously at the thought and pulled out of the lot.

Tray would be waiting for Cora in Crawfordville. He had left seven months ago, as soon as the government announced the Heritage Resettlement Plan. With proof of family ownership to a plot of land, you were permitted to return to Florida to clear it and take up residence. He had also signed them up for the Rewilding Project, an additional FEMA subsidy that was available to those who committed to replanting native flora. Cora had signed the paperwork last fall but dragged her feet on relocating until she got a flurry of panicked emails from Tray. Her application was set to expire. Cora still wasn't sure if she wanted to return to Crawfordville. It wouldn't be the same without Nanny. Or the house. Or the rest of the Charles family.

Nanny Charles's house had been the smallest one on Charles Lane. The two-bedroom bungalow with a narrow front porch was the place where their grandmother and great uncles had grown up. Their own mother had been born just down the road in the house their grandparents built. As children, Cora and Tray spent every summer on Charles Lane, running in and out of the houses of aunts and uncles who chastised or praised them according to whim. They chased cousins into and out of the Woods and invited church friends over for lemonade on Nanny's front porch. But that was decades ago, when Florida was still home and not a federally funded heritage and rewilding project.

Cora still wasn't sure if she wanted to return to Crawfordville. It wouldn't be the same without Nanny. Or the house. Or the rest of the Charles family.

Cora and Tray had been sitting across from each other in their Georgia apartment (two bedrooms, no central air) when he first told Cora he wanted to go back. The Rewilding brochure rested on the table between them.

"You sign up for Rewilding, they give you everything you need," he said. "As long as you pick what used to grow there. They got all kinds of saplings and shrubs you can choose. Remember that big tree that Nanny had out front? I think it was a pine."

"It was an oak," Cora said. Tray could never remember what actually happened, but he was king of telling you what didn't. "Where are you gonna live? Nanny's house is long gone."

This was true. They had watched the flooding on the news. Whatever remained of the houses on Charles Lane was likely floating somewhere in the Gulf.

"They give you one of those silver-bullet-looking campers to sleep in." Tray was leafing through the application packet. "Until you build your own house."

"What about the bathroom?" Cora said.

"We peed in the Woods all the time." Tray's smile made Cora pause. He looked just like their daddy with that big, goofy grin.

"It won't be like before," she said. She had to persist. He was the dreamer of the two. "Everybody's gone. The Woods are probably gone, too. You'll be by yourself."

Tray shook his head twice, no, no. He had always been the more optimistic twin, the one who could always find a way out of the Woods, even when they had long lost sight of Nanny's house.

"You might as well come. You hate the hospital anyway." Tray said. "And Nanny taught you to garden. You can help me get started." He tapped another page in the Rewilding booklet, his finger hovering over a picture of a sturdy tree. "I was thinking about starting a little orange grove. Remember how we used to make orange juice every morning?"

Cora turned the catalog toward her. In each square was a native tree, and below it, care instructions. She spoke to him but kept her eyes on the page.

"The man at the center said they were looking for part-time help. Maybe tomorrow -"

"It says here they'll let you plant as far as the seashore," Tray said. "Seagrasses. That's wild, right?"

Cora could hardly rest, the way the bus kept jolting her. All that FEMA money to pump out the water and no one one thought to throw a dollar or two at road maintenance? By the time the bus pulled up to the Encampment she was already mad at herself for coming down. But it was too late. The hospital wouldn't take her back, not after the way she left.

A hot July sun held steady over the Encampment. People hustled back and forth between open tent flaps. Green Re-Wilder shirts were everywhere. A man on a tractor drove by with a trailer full of slender trees. Burlap covered the root balls. He was followed by two pickup trucks carrying barrels.

"That's drinking water," a voice to her right said.

Cora turned to see a short, sunburned Asian woman wearing a straw hat.

"I'm looking for Tray Charles," Cora said.

"I know," the woman said. "I'm Janine. Let me show you the showers."

"That's alright. Tray's picking me up," Cora said.

Janine picked up Cora's duffel bag. "He's working at the nursery today. He said he'd meet you back home. I'm supposed to get you showered up and bring you over. Is this all you brought?"
"Yes," Cora said. "The rest is in storage."

The two women began walking down the dirt path between the tents. Janine pointed to a shipping container on the left.

"The showers are in there. Single stalls. They work on five-minute timers."

"Oh," Cora said, surprised.

Janine laughed. "It takes some getting used to. Once you're done, I'll show you the rest of the Encampment."

"I have to exchange my check too," Cora said.

"Don't worry about that," Janine said. "Tray says he's got you all set up for the next month at least."

"Well, that's good to hear. Is it far to Crawfordville?"

"About an hour in the good truck," Janine said.

"The good truck?"

Two hours later, Cora was right back where she didn't want to be: in another vehicle. Her luggage was crammed in the flatbed of Janine's truck, alongside a cage of squabbling chickens, two Florida avocado trees, and a grill. The roads heading out to Crawfordville were just as pitted as the ones to the Encampment, and her right hand clutched the door handle.

"You can also grab onto the little hold up there," Janine pointed above Cora's door.

Cora couldn't get her hand to let loose if she tried. "I'm good," she said.

"You see this nice grass alongside the highway?" Janine said. "I'm the one who found it in a seed library in Raleigh. It's native to the area, and it grows like a weed. Look at how tall it is already. There was nothing out here two years ago."

"That's nice," Cora said, politely. Is this what Tray and this lady talked about? Native grasses? Good Lord. She should have come months ago.

"And if you look over there," Janine pointed out of her window, "we got jackrabbits now. Isn't that incredible?"

Cora didn't see anything but some smears of gray darting through the grass.

"It's something," she said to be polite.

Although the old neighborhood was gone, Cora could tell by the roll of the land that they were getting close to Charles Lane. The ditches that lined the road were partially filled with debris. Tree branches stuck out at haphazard angles, and a white porcelain sink had collapsed on a tree trunk. The sunlight struck the faucet as they drove past, and Cora winced at the glare.

"Almost there," Janine said.

The truck turned off the main road and began to trundle down the dirt path that Cora had seen from the backseat of her parents' car all throughout her childhood, Nanny's house blossoming at the end of the road like a flower.

A silver camper shined ahead, and a semicircle of raised planter beds stood just before it. Cora knew without being told that these were the same vegetables that always grew at Nanny's: kale, collard greens, bell peppers, onions, sweet potatoes. The camper door swung open, and Tray's frame filled the open doorway.

"Well, if it ain't Sis," he said.

Cora found herself smiling even though her back ached. There was old, daydreaming Tray with his unruly eyebrows and ashy knees.

He opened the truck's door to collect her in a bear hug. She could smell his heavy, sweet sweat. "Janine, have I ever told you how much I love my sister?"

"About once a day," Janine said.

"You two see each other that often?" Cora was surprised. The Encampment wasn't that easy to get to, and Tray didn't even have a car.

"'Course we do," Tray said.

Cora frowned, still not understanding.

Tray left Cora's side to kiss Janine on the cheek. "Told you I was the smart one. Now why are we out here if there's iced tea in there?"

The next two weeks passed in a blur. There was so much to do. Tray had started an orange grove at the edge of the property. He spent most of the day out there, fussing over the young trees while Cora kept up the area around the camper. She swept the ground, watered the plants, cleared brush, fed the chickens, and set vegetables on the grill to cook. As a child, these activities would have left her charged up for a good play session in the Woods. Thirty years later was a different story. Calluses sprouted on her hands. Her calves ached. Her shoulders stooped. At lunch, she found she was too tired to talk. Chewing took all the energy she could muster. Tray, however, prattled away. How did the man have so much energy? He'd been a ghost the whole time they were up in Georgia. She had been the one pushing him to get out of bed, go outside. Now she couldn't get him to turn off.

Calluses sprouted on her hands. Her calves ached. Her shoulders stooped. At lunch, she found she was too tired to talk. Chewing took all the energy she could muster. Tray, however, prattled away.

She must have been staring at him.

"What?" Tray said.

"Nothing," Cora stuffed another piece of green pepper in her mouth. "You were saying something about quarterly grow allotments?"

"Right," Tray said. "If we exchange your check for grow allotments, we can take the orange grove all the way down to where Aunt Doreen and Uncle Frank used to live."

"I guess," Cora said. She didn't see why Tray wanted to keep expanding the orange grove. It was just the three of them. They couldn't drink that much orange juice.

By the third week, Cora had begun to create a rhythm of her own. Janine spent most days at the Encampment, but she would sometimes take Tray with her to help on projects. On those days, Cora did both sets of chores. Once she was done, she dragged a chair from the camper and faced it west to where the Woods once grew. She and Tray had spent countless hours of their childhoods out there. The trees were thin, with brown trunks that spiraled into green crowns in the summer, red ones in the winter; the trees in the Woods grew close together, and their branches tangled overhead. Cora remembered darting in and out of the spots of sunlight that shivered along the ground, running after Tray or running away from him. The Woods held their exploratory shrieks, their curse words, even the tiny treasures that they had stolen from their cousins and buried underground for safekeeping. Cora had once twisted her leg on a fallen log in the Woods. Tray half-dragged her to the mouth of the forest and shouted for help, his voice keening over the sound of the radio playing in Nanny's kitchen window. What he meant to shout was "Help!" What he yelled was "Cora!" until his grandmother's head popped into the window frame to tell him to hush that noise.

"Hey, there," Janine called.

Cora turned to see the truck pull up just past the camper. The flatbed was filled with medium-size trees with dark green leaves and familiar white blossoms.

"Somebody order orange juice?" Tray said.

"They gave you your allotment early?" Cora asked.

"Sure did," Tray said. "And we can take you down on Saturday to get yours. I already put a hold on the rest of the orange trees."

Janine let down the back of the truck bed, and a wave of exhaustion hit Cora. Hours of digging and planting lay ahead.

Later that night, she grabbed a flashlight and took her sleeping bag outside to spread it out where she thought the front porch had once been. She could hear Janine and Tray talking softly through the open window. What would Nanny think of all this? Rewilding, the Heritage plan? "Call it what you want," Nanny would likely say, "just keep on doing it together."

"But an orange grove?" Cora said aloud, and then hushed. She didn't want Tray to hear.

They spent the rest of the week on the trees. By the time Saturday rolled around, Cora didn't want to see another shovel or bag of soil. Her whole body protested as Tray shook her awake, and she fell asleep again in the truck as they drove to the Encampment. A pothole finally jarred her awake, and she opened her eyes to see the tents unfolding before them.

A church bus like the one she had arrived in was parked at the entrance. People clambered out, blinking in the sunlight, bags in hand. A man with a clipboard waved his hands in a big "X" over his head. The crowd began to shuffle toward him. Janine pulled off to the side to park.

"The grow allotment is in the back," she told Cora.

"Got it," Cora said. "I'll meet y'all at Dry Goods in an hour."

"See if they got any tangerines too," Tray said.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

They kept the grow allotment humid. Cora could feel water beading up on her forehead as she walked between the rows of trees in the tent. Leaves of all sizes brushed her shoulders. She stroked a tree branch, and the leaves tickled her palm.

"Flowering dogwood," the white-haired woman from the help desk said.

"Right," Cora said.

The woman was repotting a small plant. "I'm Joy. If you need anything, give a holler," she said.

"I'm supposed to be looking for orange trees," Cora said.

"We have a lot of nice native trees here," Joy said. "Not just oranges. Where are you planting?"

"My brother and I are out in Crawfordville. On our grandmother's land."

"Ah, there used to be some nice sourwood trees up there."

"I don't know those," Cora said.

"Oh, you'd know them if you saw them," Joy said. "They grew wild out there. They get about this wide and grow about this tall."

Her hands moved in a delicate ballet as she spoke. Cora nodded politely. She didn't know what this lady was talking about, and she hoped these orange trees wouldn't use up the whole allotment. She wanted to get a little shrub for herself, something cute and hopeful.

The small tree looked like nothing special to Cora, but then she saw the shape of the leaf and realized that she knew this tree. These were the trees from the Woods - her woods.

"A few came in the other day," Joy continued, rounding the table and walking past Cora. "They put them right ... ah, here they are."

The small tree looked like nothing special to Cora, but then she saw the shape of the leaf and realized that she knew this tree. These were the trees from the Woods - her woods. All summer long the leaves were a deep, dark green, and when Cora and her family came back to Crawfordville for Thanksgiving they were a rich riot of orange and red.

"Nice, aren't they?" Joy said.

All Cora could do was nod.

"People always want a tree that does, like a fruit tree," Joy said. "But a good tree just knows how to be. Let me show you the oranges."

Cora left the tent with a potted jade. The rest of her grow allotment would be ready for pickup next Saturday.

"How many did you get?" Tray said. They were standing outside of Dry Goods. "You probably had enough for another 40."

"Enough," Cora said. "What did y'all pick up?"

Tray lifted the duffel bags onto his shoulder. "Rice, beans. The usual."

Janine came out of the Medical Tent with a small tote. "Everyone good?"

The whole ride back Tray chatted about his plan for the grove. Cora hadn't heard him so excited about anything in years.

"Why oranges?" she asked when he finally paused to take a breath.

"Everybody likes orange juice," he said.

"Everybody doesn't like orange juice," Cora said. "Besides, don't you want to add something else to the mix?"

"I was thinking that too," he said. "Tangerines. Or maybe -"

"What about sourwood?"

"What's that?" Janine asked.

"Those were the trees that grew behind the house," Cora said. "The lady in the tent told me the name; I never knew what they were called."

Tray laughed. "What are we going to do with sourwood trees? Climb them?"

"Maybe," Cora shrugged, stung.

He stopped laughing. "We too old for that kind of stuff. You said yourself the Woods is gone. Ain't nothing but what we make now."

"It's not like that," Cora said.

"What's it like then?"
Cora was quiet. Janine turned down the lane. The now-familiar camper and planter beds waited for them at the end.

"Is that what you got at the allotment?" Tray asked.

The kale looked dehydrated to Cora. The leaves were curling up and over. As soon as the sun passed its peak, she'd have to douse them good.

They didn't talk much at dinner. Tray was upset, Cora could tell. He bolted down his food and then stalked off to the orange grove. Janine finally spoke.

"I'm sure the sourwood trees will be nice," she said. "He'll probably feel differently once he sees them."

Cora nodded and stood. "I'll go check on him."

The sky was a soft blue, with the summer sun slowly setting. Cora could see Tray at the end of one long row of trees. He was squatting and poking at the dirt with a stick. He didn't look up. Cora knelt beside him. The soil, she noted, was a deep, rich brown.

"Oranges were the first thing I grew that survived," he said. "It seemed like a sign."

Tray looked down the lane, "Now it seems silly, all these trees. Waking up early every day worrying over them."

"I hear you," Cora said. "But it's good to wake up and worry over something. It means you care enough to get it right."

"You were always worried about me," Tray said.

"Up there? Sure. I thought about you every time I left the house. Worried if you'd still be there when I got back."

Tray smiled. "Where was I gonna go? We didn't have no people in Georgia."

Cora said, "I didn't know, that's the part that worried me."

The twins were quiet for a moment. The wind rustled the tiny leaves in the trees, and Cora thought about Nanny splashing dishwater on her petunias.

"You think Nanny would have liked Janine?" Tray asked.

"I think she would have liked all of this," Cora said, waving her hand at the furrows of soil. "She would have said we were doing good by the family. Even with fifty-eleven orange trees."

Tray laughed. "I don't even think she drank orange juice like that."

Cora rubbed his shoulder, "Well, lucky for us we do, because we're going to have a whole lot of it soon enough."

"They say when the sourwoods would be ready for pickup?"

"Next Sunday," Cora said.

"Good," Tray said. "That gives us enough time to get the soil ready."
Read more from Imagine 2200:

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Imagine 2200 , Fix's climate fiction contest, recognizes stories that envision the next 180 years of equitable climate progress, imagining intersectional worlds of abundance, adaptation, reform, and hope. Read the 2022 collection here. The Northwest Connector took you across the Georgia state line and into the Panhandle.

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Imagine 2200, Fix's climate fiction contest, recognizes stories that envision the next 180 years of equitable climate progress, imagining intersectional worlds of abundance, adaptation, reform, and hope. Read the 2022 collection here.
When her eyes were at her knees and Mama was teaching her how to swim, she told her that drowning is easy and staying alive is the realest struggle. But she was a pickney then, so the words did go through one ear and fly out the other. They fly back in again when she got pregnant at almost 15 and drop out of high school. Now, they come back, wheeling around in her head like John Crows.

So this is what it feel like fi dead.

She's a rock, sinking. Part of her know she mustn't drop asleep.

- Sleep is the sister of Death, Boysie did say.

Swim back to the shore.

She has to go back home. But her body not cooperating at all. It behaving like a hard ears pickney, just like what Mama used to call her.

Something not right. How mi feel so light, like mi weigh likkle and nothing?

Mama used to boast about her: "Yuh see my Bubbles? Don't watch her size. She can do anything - climb coconut tree, kin pupalick, do splits - even though she fat. She better than seven sons. Heh! Bet oonu never know she was swimming like fish before she could walk."

She can't feel her legs. She looks down.

They're not there. Like the rest of her body.

She drew Precious into her arms, ran her hand over her hair with its neat canerows, straight and smooth, unlike the roads in Ackee Town that full of potholes. Once, a taxi man told her that if your vehicle make mistake and drop into one, you would end up in China.

"Precious, stop cry now. I soon come back." She held her at arm's length, brushed stray tears away.

"Miss Cunningham said eagle fishing -"

"Illegal."

"Illegal fishing is wrong, and overfishering -"

"Overfishing."

"Overfishing is bad 'cause there won't be any fish left." Precious stopped, trying to remember. "And the crawls need the fish to keep them clean and healthy."

"Corals."

"Yes, Mummy. Mummy, you nuh 'fraid fi go prison?"

"Precious, what ah tell yuh 'bout speaking patwah?"

"But you do it all the time."

"Listen, sometimes you have to do things that people say are wrong for a good cause." She kissed her forehead. "You are my good cause."

This chile. "Yes, but I know when to speak it. Nothing is wrong with patwah, but I want you to practice speaking standard English because," she glanced at Sweets as she approached and stood at the entrance to the bedroom, "I want a better life for you. This is 2032, but some people will still judge you by how yuh talk. Don't make your mouth hold yuh back in life. And yuh auntie and me not going to prison, so stop worry. We not hurting anybody, baby. We trying to survive. Listen, sometimes you have to do things that people say are wrong for a good cause." She kissed her forehead. "You are my good cause."

"Come, Bubbles." Sweets clicked her tongue, patted her speargun. "We haffi go now." She headed toward the front door.

Precious started bawling again. "Mummy, don't go. Please."

"Marley, stop it! Yuh finish yuh homework?"

Precious's tears slowly dried up like the taps during water lock-offs. Her eyes round like a dinner plate, the way she surprised. "Mummy, you said my name."

Same time, Mama rushed into the room as if she heard bad news. "What happen to har?" She moved closer to Precious and rested the back of her hand against her neck and forehead. "She never use to behave like dis when you go fishing."

She stood up, smoothed away the creases her backside made on the bedspread. "I don't know, Mama, and I haffi leave now."

"Come, putus." Mama gently led Precious out of the room.

In the kitchen, Mama took a jar of nutmegs out of a cupboard and put one in Precious's mouth to soothe her nerves. She screwed up her face, but obeyed Mama when she told her not to spit it out and to sit at the dining room table.

Mama handed her a clean sheet of loose paper and her box of crayons. "Draw somet'ing nice fi yuh Mummy."

Precious nodded and set to work. Mama pushed out her lips to indicate that they should go outside.

In the front yard, Sweets was sitting on the concrete staircase beside the house.

"God go wid oonu. Remember de offering fi Boysie."

Sweets shook her head, sighed. "Mama, why yuh must say the same t'ing every time we go fishing? We always do it."

"He was mi only son. I want him to continue rest in peace."

"Mummy, wait." Precious ran toward her, waving the loose sheet of paper like a flag.

"How yuh finish draw so quick? What yuh do wid de nutmeg?" Mama pretended to look stern.

"It on de," she stopped, remembering, "it's on the table. I'm okay now, Grandma." She turned to her. "This is for you, Mummy."

She took the paper, grinned at the drawing of a silver, blue, and pink fish with her name under it. "Thanks, baby. It's really pretty." She handed it back to her. "Ask Grandma for a magnet, so yuh can put it on de fridge." She squatted to give her a quick hug. "Auntie and me going to bring back nuff parrotfish and snapper, okay?"

"I'm going to stop eating parrotfish."

"Why? It's your favorite."

"Miss Cunningham said not a lot of fish are left."

"Miss Cunningham is a teacher, not a fisherwoman."

"She invited a marie blygist to class last week."

"Marine biologist."

"Yes, Mummy. The lady said parrotfish can save the beaches and crawls - the corals. She said sand comes from parrotfish doo-doo." Her expression changed, as if she had the whole world balancing on her 6-year-old shoulders. "Mummy, please don't catch any more parrotfish. You can help them."

"Precious, I ..." She pinched the bridge of her nose, let her hand fall into her lap. "Behave yuhself and listen to Grandma. We soon come back."

As she shifted to straighten herself, Precious grabbed her arm and pulled her down to her level again. She whispered in her ear, pivoted like a ballet dancer, and sprinted like Usain Bolt inside the house.

"Bubbles! Bubbles!" Mama's voice echoed as if from inside a tunnel. "Sweets, move fast and bring de bottle of white rum mek mi rub some on har face. She look like she gwine collapse!"

She want to scream, to put down a piece of cow-bawling and roll on the ground, but her new mouth feel like it belong to a stranger. No, Jah. This can't be real. In the broken glass bottom of a boat that cotch on a damaged coral reef, her shattered reflection make her feel like she going mad.

Mighty God of Daniel, as Mama would say.

Her silver and gray parrotfish reflection stare back at her.

How dis happen to mi? Why it happen to mi? Mi can turn back into miself? How mi going to get back home?

Tears and rage building up inside her like a Category 5 storm, but she have no way to let them out. Every time life kick her down, she kick back as good as she got.

Now, mi can't even give it one good kick, to rahtid.

The words Precious whispered to her fly back in her ear.

No, she can't give up. Her body is different now, but she's still Marie Martin, Melba's daughter, Sweets's sister, and Precious's mother. She's a hustler. A survivor. Tough and stubborn to break like Jackass Corn. As much as she want to bawl her eyes out, common sense is taking over and telling her she has to survive in this new world. What would Mama say?

- Bubbles, if yuh know what good fi yuh, yuh better think like a fish.

Is nighttime, so moray eels are hunting parrotfish. Instead of being the hunter, she's now the prey. She need to find somewhere to -

What is this now? Trouble always set like rain.

Ten, 15, likkle more than 20 parrotfish coming toward her. Right off the bat, she know which one is the Don. Living in Ackee Town teach you these things. He's full-bodied, and look boasy in pink and electric blue. Something jump inside her like it frighten. Guilt seize her. She wish she could tell him sorry. His eyes walk all over her while the others circle her like they investigating a crime scene. Next thing she know, they nudging her. She gear up herself to fight, bite, until she sense they want her to follow them.

Jah, where them taking mi?

All of them moving like one body. She in the middle, somehow managing to keep up. Even though she shooting through the water faster than Alia Atkinson, and feel water leaving her gills to merge with the sea, she not thirsty. The seawater feel smooth like cocoa butter as it slide over her gills. The liquid air in this blue-green world is sweet like ripe Julie mangoes bursting in her mouth, the golden juice running down to her elbow, now a memory.

Her new eyes allow her to see all around her at the same time. They not burning or watering, no matter how long she stare because she don't need to blink. The seawater is as invisible to her as the air when she walked on land. She and the other parrotfish moving like colorful light over a field of waving seagrass. Around a bend, she almost collide with a bleached coral reef squatting like a tenement yard. The corals stare back at her like the discolored faces of misguided young men and women in her community, who believe that lightening their dark complexion is a ladder out of the pit of poverty.

Her new eyes allow her to see all around her at the same time. They not burning or watering, no matter how long she stare because she don't need to blink. The seawater is as invisible to her as the air when she walked on land.

Two-twos, they reach a healthy reef. She and Sweets never dive in this section. It's like a brand-new world, full of color and life. A clownfish hide among some staghorn corals when it spot her. Wait! Is a sea turtle dat? Can't tell when last mi see one. The baby fish peep at her from the reef's crevices. Some more parrotfish, along with a handful of snappers, watching her.

Dem know mi different? Why dem help mi?

She's an outsider. Before her change, she was their enemy. A predator.

Something happening to her again.

Is what dis slimy substance on mi body? Yuck!

It's on the other parrotfish, too. They settling down for the night in the nooks and crannies of the reef.

Ohhh! The slime hide us from predators.

She find a crevice, slip into it, and watch them. Sleep biting her, but she fighting it. She look to her right. The leader's eye and her own make two.

Is like him read mi mind and know mi don't plan to stay here.

Quick-quick, she form like she sleeping.

Maybe mi will turn back into miself once mi reach de shore.

First chance she get, she out of here.

The sea, so quiet, unlike inside her. Precious's words tumbling over and over in her head like when she kin pupalick. The sky was a black sheet that the moon hiding behind. Sweets's mouth moving as she poured libations into the seawater. When she finished her ritual, she lit a spliff and blew perfect Os toward the black sheet above, just like Boysie's habit before he began fishing for the day or night. He used to say that was how him feel the power of their ancestors guiding him. She always wondered if he smoked that day when he died.

Sweets nudged her foot with hers. "Your time."

She leaned over the side of the Empress of the Sea and placed a calabash containing trimmings from their hair and nails, along with another calabash filled with white rice and curry goat, on the back of the seawater. Ripple by ripple, the water carried them away.

"Mikayla, promise me somet'ing."

"Whatever it is, it must be serious. Can't tell when last mi hear yuh call me by mi Government name."

"Promise me you'll look after Precious if anyt'ing happen to me."

"Stop chat faat. Me an' Mama not doing dat a'ready?"

"I mean ... be her mother. You."

"What happen to yuh tonight? How yuh sound like yuh spooked?"

"Just promise me an' done, nuh?" She kissed her teeth.

"All right, all right. Nuh bodda get ignorant pon me. Of course. Yuh never haffi ask." She outed the spliff between her thumb and forefinger and sucked them. "Yuh ready?" She put on her mask and fins, and took up her speargun.

"Right behind you." She attached a dive flashlight to the lanyard around her wrist, and turned it on. "Ten minutes?"

"Nine." Sweets slipped beneath the skin of the seawater like a whisper.

She ignored the needle-prick in her conscience when they reached a no-take zone.

Suppose de wardens catch you and Sweets?

What yuh expect we fi do? Look how much wages we lose sake o' de sanctuary's restrictions. How mi must help put food on de table, plus pay Precious's school fees an' buy her holo-textbooks if mi nuh do dis?

So what you going to do when no more fish are left?

Sweets's hand signal distracted her just in time. She squashed the whispers in her head. Then almost forgot to keep holding her breath. A flash of the brightest blue she ever saw. The water can play tricks on your mind when your body doing its best to conserve oxygen. But she wasn't seeing things. A pretty electric blue and neon-pink parrotfish side-eyeing them like him want to know what their business is around these parts. The speargun suddenly felt heavy in her hand. Her fingers curled around it tighter than usual. She needed the money bad-bad. Sweets gave her the thumbs-up sign. She aimed at the pretty parrotfish. Before she could shoot, it darted away.

Too late, she understood why.

A giant moray eel.

Before she or Sweets could react, it latched onto Sweets's leg. She started doing the one thing she shouldn't do.

- Panic kill first before de drowning, Boysie did say when he was teaching them to free dive.

Alarm bells like police sirens in her head. She turned her head just in time to see a goliath grouper charging toward her.

- Sometimes dem work together, Boysie did say. De enemy of mi enemy is mi friend.

Sweets taking in more water.

Nine minutes.

Boysie used to hold out until 11 minutes. But she and Sweets not that good.

She aimed at the grouper.

What she did expect? Going back didn't change a thing. She's still a parrotfish. The taste of disappointment is bitter in her mouth as if she swallowed cerasee tea.

By now, her family must think she dead. She can't imagine what they going through, especially Mama. She and Precious took it extremely hard when Boysie died last year. Now, they going to have to deal with the pain of losing her.

Something inside her like a long piece of rope is pulling her toward the reef with the fish. The other end is hauling her heart toward Ackee Town and her family. After dillydallying in her mind, she make a U-turn with a heavy feeling inside. Might as well go back. It not safe to be out here alone.

The bleached coral reef still look an old tenement yard. The last time she saw a forest of beautiful, healthy reefs was when she was 8 years old. Precious isn't that fortunate. She has to depend on her science holo-textbook and visor to see moving 4D images of coral reefs when they were in their glory.

She couldn't change back and return to her family, but she could do something for them and the land she left behind that would benefit them now and throughout the coming years.

But stop! Why she so focused on the past? She was always a person to look forward, to plan for whatever was waiting around the corner. Just because she's a fish now don't mean that part of her change. She was just sleeping in a healthy reef, which means that there's hope for this one and others like it. She could help the other parrotfish restore the reefs and beaches. Precious and the children in Ackee Town could get to see a thriving reef for real and play on a beach one day. She couldn't change back and return to her family, but she could do something for them and the land she left behind that would benefit them now and throughout the coming years.

You have to say goodbye to your old life and accept your new one. You can do that?

I can do anything fi mi family. Mi want good fi dem, so mi nose haffi run.

Your new family waiting for you. Hurry up.

She sense it even before she reach. Not one of them is sleeping. They move as one toward her and form a circle around her. Sound waves sliding off their bodies. She understand them. They wondering where she did go. If she could bawl, she would. She only experienced that kind of care and concern from Mama, Boysie, Sweets, and Precious.

Inside her feel like knots unraveling. Instinct take over and she start to vibrate just like them. She going to tell them everything.

She could almost hear Mama's cheerful, hoarse laugh.

- Come, mi dear. Mek we lap frock tail. Mi have one story fi gi' yuh!

The air never tasted so sweet. She gulped it, choked, gulped some more. Her eyes burned like when you make mistake and take your hand that have Scotch bonnet pepper juice on it and rub your eye.

She could barely feel her arms as she hauled Sweets toward the Empress of the Sea.

"Sweets. Sweets! Yuh hear mi?"

She coughed. Nodded. Cried out when she tried to climb into the boat.

"After three. One, two, three." She strained to push Sweets up and over into the boat.

Sweets coughed again, sat up. Pain all over her face as she looked at the wound on her leg.

"Yuh going need stitches. No clinic is open at this time o' night."

Sweets rummaged through the first-aid kit. "Mi will ask Mama to sew it up when we reach back." Her hands trembled as she cleaned the cut.

"De timing bad, but mi soon come back."

Sweets's head snapped up. "Where yuh going?"

"To get de spearguns."

"Leff dem. It nuh worth it."

"How we going manage without them?"

"Mi a beg yuh. Nuh go back down there. Mek we go home."

"Yuh know how much money fi one speargun, not to mention two?"

Sweets coughed, spat.

"Mi nah tek long. Three minutes max."

She slipped beneath the rippling seawater before Sweets could form another word.

Two minutes.

The spearguns were right where she and Sweets dropped them.

Her flashlight flickered.

She knocked it two times. The light jerked on, off, on ...

She dived quick-quick, grabbed the spearguns.

... off.

A cramp shoot up her right leg like a lightning bolt.

She forgot to breathe, dropped the flashlight and the spearguns. Pain forced her mouth open.

Four minutes.

She should've listened to Sweets. Her tired muscles felt like a rubber band that stretch out till it slack. She fighting the water and reaching nowhere fast. Only losing air like a tire with a leak.

In her ears, her heart was a slow drum beat from far away.

She's a rock, sinking.

Her body jerked once, twice.

She landed on something rough. Dimly, she realized it was a dying coral reef.

So this is what it feel like fi dead.

Her body sank into the bed of corals.

Before everything went black, her last memory was of Precious grabbing her arm and whispering in her ear, "You're not coming back, Mummy, but you're not going to die."

What is time now? It fly like a hummingbird. She learn to mark it by the shape of the moon. Thirteen moons show their round faces since the last night she walked on two legs. The feeling of missing her human body is a memory. Everything from that time is a dream now.

The little girl in a blue dress with pink flowers is running barefoot to the beach's hairline. What she name again? Precious. She used to miss her. That ache is lost in a distant memory. She get taller, but she still skinny like bamboo. Well, that not changing. She get her size from her father. She holding a sheet of paper close to her chest. Her eyes searching the water. Six moons she been doing the same thing.

A fat woman with hair like thin ropes the color of the rainbow is heading towards the little gi- Precious. Try remember her name. It won't be long before she's just another little girl on a beach. The woman ... she name ... Sweets. She say something to Precious that make her face light up a bit, like when a cloud can't hide the sun's smile.

Some people are arriving in twos, threes, fours. Not the ones she have to be careful of. The ones who try to catch her and her family. No, these people, some with dark faces, others paler, come to swim or eat or lie down on the beach, now that there are beaches on the island again and seafood restaurants are back in business. She don't spot the ones who came a whole heap of times to examine and test the sand on this beach. They were excited can't done, as if it was the first time they were seeing sand. Sand that came from her and her family. Special sand that she helped to create.

An older woman is coming toward Precious and Sweets. Mama. Her hair is more salt than pepper. Her body look like it's holding up her dress. That face used to know belly-laughing and smiles. It's strange to see her here today. The last time she step foot here was when the sand returned, six moons ago.

Movement beside her. She never have to look to see that it's the electric-blue and neon-pink parrotfish. He started joining her whenever she came to check if Precious, Sweets, and Mama on the beach. She wonder if he remember them. She wonder how long it took him to forget that he was Boysie.

Is the sand did make her realize he was her brother. The same sand on the beach that caused those strangers to get excited. Her and Boysie's doo-doo is different. Boysie smart, so she feel he figured it out, too.

Precious step into the seawater with purpose, her eyes seeking something. Finally, she bend down and let a gentle wave carry the paper away. Six moons she been doing the same thing. Each time, her face would screw up and water would spill from her eyes like rain. Same thing happen again. She turn and run to Sweets, who kneel down on the sand and hug her. Mama trying to stand up strong, but she look like she going to keel over any minute.

She wish she could tell them that the sea gives more than she takes. That what was lost is found. That in her previous life, she took more than she gave, but everything is balanced now because she gave the biggest gift of her entire existence, past and present. She, Boysie, and their offspring helped to restore this beach, and others on the island, better than it was before. She wish she could tell them that what was given up as dead is reborn. She wish she could show them the coral reefs, stronger than before, like underwater rainforests filled with countless fish and other sea creatures. She wish she could say, "All is not lost. Dat sand oonu standing on is hope. It will bear oonu up today, tomorrow, and for the rest of oonu lives."

She wish she could tell them that the sea gives more than she takes. That what was lost is found. That in her previous life, she took more than she gave, but everything is balanced now because she gave the biggest gift of her entire existence, past and present.

The special sand is the greatest gift she, Boysie, and their offspring can offer them from their bodies. When her and his time come, they will leave behind a strong and lasting legacy. This island and others in the Caribbean can finally exhale in relief.

More people show up, spreading over the beach like ants. She can't see Precious, Sweets, and Mama anymore. By the next ripe moon, she might forget the blood-tie she once shared with them and think of them as strangers she recognized. Even Boysie would become just a pretty parrotfish to her one day.

As if he read her mind, he nudge her to make her know is time to leave. For a moment, as she look at him, Boysie's shoulder-length dreadlocks and a smile like pearls on his long, dark face flash behind her eyes. Somehow, she know she would never see it again after today. But it's okay. They're together again, even when they won't remember who they were to each other in a yesterday life.

The flash behind her eyes fading like when the evening sun slowly dipping into the sea. But not before Boysie grin and say in his husky voice, "Come, Bubbles. Mek we go home now."
Read more from Imagine 2200:

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Imagine 2200 , Fix's climate fiction contest, recognizes stories that envision the next 180 years of equitable climate progress, imagining intersectional worlds of abundance, adaptation, reform, and hope. Read the 2022 collection here. When her eyes were at her knees and Mama was teaching her how to swim, she told her that drowning is easy and staying alive is the realest struggle.

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Imagine 2200, Fix's climate fiction contest, recognizes stories that envision the next 180 years of equitable climate progress, imagining intersectional worlds of abundance, adaptation, reform, and hope. Read the 2022 collection here. Author disclaimer: This is a fictional work, and I do not advocate for readers to engage with sharks in the ways described without experience and/or permission. This work was written to honor traditional practices of kahu manō, of shark-guardianships in Hawaiʻi as well as to identify marine- and Oceania-based climate solutions that are inclusive of and dependent on local and Indigenous islanders. OFFSHORE SOUTH KONA, HAWAI'I ISLAND
MARCH 20, 2112
"Why are we out here again?" Kūkia's breath came out as small breaths of steam in the chilly early-morning air. The winters had gotten harsher, wetter and colder, just as the summers brought the bleaching, the water much too warm.

"Poachers," Māihi whispered grumpily. She was not a morning-person, particularly on these crisp spring mornings. But it was she who had insisted that they come out. Māihi had always liked the warm-muscle feeling in her legs that would come as they anchored her to the deck in the rolling swell and she focused on that now. They had been watching, waiting for over an hour.

"I don't think they're coming," Kūkia said sourly and shook his head, although he smiled behind his neck guard. He dangled his feet off of the swim-deck in small, lazy circles. One and Aka moved languidly beneath his toes with their gentle-giant way. The waters here were rich with the plankton that they needed. He knew many of the manō by name, easily distinguished by their varying markings or scars, and would often spend the day freediving beside them, trying to immerse himself in their world of salt and humpback song. He began to sing softly, a song composed to honor Kanaloa, the akua of the sea-world.

The pair gazed down at the slow movements of the large, graceful whale sharks and the gliding movements of the occasional ray below. The water was clear enough that they could make out the Alice-in-Wonderland outline of the reef below, some 20 or 30 feet down and the undulating indentations in the sand that ran parallel to the shore behind them. Māihi's feet tapped an ʻuwehe into the deck: one foot lifted, weight held on the opposite hip, foot lowered, and knees pushed forward, heels raised. The four-step-pop steadily followed the rhythm of the sea and boat's entwined heartbeat.

"We know they've been coming in the early morning," Māihi insisted quietly. If she closed her eyes, she could feel the rough sandpaper edge of shark skin she sometimes saw at the market, the bins of fins secretly coveted as black-market-medicine, with the increasing levels of cancer among the islanders, and her anger would bubble through her, like a muscle spasm she couldn't control. So, she kept her eyes wide-open.

"We have to stop them." She peered sideways at Kūkia, admiring his loose, long black hair. Her hands instinctively reached to the ends of her short hair and her naʻau sank with the remembering. The four-step deck dance stopped.

Kūkia waited several moments before responding. "People are struggling."

It had been 20 years since the meat industry had been shut down and U.S. production had fully switched over to plant-based replacements; just 10 years since Hawaiʻi had started the Sea Pathways program in partnership with other Oceania-nations.

People weren't hungry, maybe, he reconciled within himself, but they were starved for something, the something that he and Māihi now guarded.

Kūkia, a few years older than Māihi, had been part of the project from the beginning as guardian of the manō's movement through ʻŌiwi waters. He, himself, had never liked the idea of the plant-based proteins, of meat-being-made and had watched with fear for his people, as the rising protein prices had come along with the industry. He had watched as their waters had been increasingly fished by all those who couldn't afford the protein, returning to this ancestral icebox. And as the fish populations had declined, the hunger had turned towards the sharks. For meat, for leather, for spirit- medicine. People weren't hungry, maybe, he reconciled within himself, but they were starved for something, the something that he and Māihi now guarded.

"Everything depends on them," Māihi said, her voice so low Kūkia almost couldn't hear her. "Everything." Since climate scientists had reported that large marine creatures, not just whales, but also large sharks, large fish such as tuna and marlin, could store as much, if not more carbon than some of the largest trees, Pathways had been designated for their protection. "One whale is worth a thousand trees", she had remembered reading. Koholā and manō were the guardians of the climate. And once the manō had learned of these 'safe' places, and learned the routes, they had come, and certain individuals, like One and Aka, had stayed.

Kūkia leaned back from the boat-deck uneasily. Māihi was being uncharacteristically serious and he wondered what was wrong. She kept reaching for her hair and drawing up short and so he didn't tease her as he might have when they were kids. Māihi had cut all of her hair off when she had lost her husband last year - had kept it short ever since. Still, she clung to the sadness, as something integral to her, the way she did her makeup the same way every morning: thick black lines and a rusty-red shadow that made him think of the rust-red dust of Mānā on Kauaʻi. She wore her grief with pride.

"We better get going or we'll be late for Ceremony," Kūkia said and took a deep breath of the rain-heavy salty ocean air. He clapped his hands together in an effort to warm his muscles in face of the Makani Ōlauniu - the coconut-leaf-piercing wind - and rose from the swim deck.

"Yeah, OK, I ... " Her words were cut off by the echo of a motor cutting across the slow-rolling sea's expanse.

"Do they think we're just out here for shits and giggles?" she asked, shaking her head as the boat neared them. There were no boundary lines that you could see offshore, but everyone knew this was one of the protected Pathways.

The difficulty with guarding something so large, that had grown to trust them and trust this area, was that they were easily found. And that trust, their relationship, meant that many of the manō, and One was among them, greeted the boats and would swim right up to the side of the deck, as they did for Kūkia and his ancestors so many generations ago.

"Damn," Māihi swore, and reached for their own steering panel. "I knew it."

"Hold on, Mā," Kūkia said. "What are you going to do when you catch them?"

"You're just going to let them get away with it?" her voice was deep with the constant-sea-of-outrage she swam in.

"No," Kūkia finally said, glumly. "But if I get shot, I'm blaming you."

As she leaped onto the deck she felt her stomach drop, as though falling out of her body, to the sound of a gun cocking. There was just one man, and she instantly knew that he was not a fisherman - he looked like someone better suited to sitting behind a computer screen. She looked the man in the eyes without hesitation and, despite her pounding heart and the sweat pooling above her lips, felt no fear.

"Kū, stay back," Māihi called calmly as she stepped forward, hoping that he would listen.

She had known from the very beginning that to bring back the manō, to reclaim these ancestral sea-corridors, to put them in ʻŌiwi hands, would inevitably invite violence. It was the cholera epidemic of 1895, the shark-culling of the 1960s and 1970s. It was the make ʻīnea, the anguish-filled deaths of her Hawaiian peoples, their names on waitlists for Hawaiian Homelands, never to be received.

"I'm not here to hurt you. Or to catch you."

She moved toward the man slowly, his hand trembling, finger on the trigger. She could feel, without looking, Kūkia and The Lanikai rocking softly behind her.

"You came out here, alone?" she asked, continuing to move closer.

"My kids are hungry. My wife is sick. I don't know what else to do," the man finally said, his voice loud and tremulous.

Māihi knew he was telling the truth. "It's OK." She stepped so that the rifle was placed firmly against her chest, as well as locked into his shoulder where he held it. The rifle's tip was still warm from when he had fired in warning and yet still, she felt no fear. "It's OK," she said softly and she looked clearly into his brown eyes.

After several long moments the man lowered his rifle slowly, as though defeated, ashamed.

"Bring your family to our ceremony today. Bring your wife to our kahu. There's plenty of food for your children. My freezer is still full from the October harvest, I have enough to share."

"I'm not ʻŌiwi."

"It doesn't matter."

"Hana hou!" Kūkia heard over the large speakers as the emcee called for the last performance to be repeated. His eyes were not on dancers, but locked on Māihi where she sat, just a pop-up-tent away, with her son, August Jr. She was reading something to him but he couldn't make out the words over the speaker. She had done her hair and put on a dress since that morning's outing.

"Damn it," he whispered to himself for his curiosity, but he moved to one of the free lawn-chairs under her pop-up.

She looked up briefly and gave him a nod but continued to read with her strong, clear voice. "Aloha kakahiaka."

Kūkia realized she must be starting from the beginning, as this was the way, in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, to say good morning.

She continued on in English, Kūkia knew she was still learning how to speak their language. "I am here today to speak on behalf of the manō, our brothers, our cousins and the poʻe iʻa, the sea people, on which we all depend."

Four-year-old Junior looked up at his mom as though she were Hina and he was a pale, lavender koaliʻawa morning-glory, drinking in the moon's glow. Everyone called him Junior, as the loss of August still lingered among their people.

Kūkia listened too, though as puhi, eel, emerging from shade shrouded coral cave to the bright, dazzling world the sun-filled open reef. Dazed. Māihi had been asked to give this year's speech at their annual spring equinox ceremony to offer their prayers to restore the climate. The sound of the pahu drum moved over the surrounding vendors and family tents, linking their heartbeats in unison.

"We open this ceremony in a place of prayer. We know, as we live the blessings so prayed for by our ancestors, that our place within ceremony, with prayer, moves with and changes our mana: energy, our spirit." Māihi looked up and made eye contact with the two, one pair of eyes young and hungry, the other soft, thoughtful.

"When we ask each other, how are you doing, we say 'pehea ʻoe?'. But when we break that phrase apart, and we look at 'hea' alone, we know we are calling on, giving name to, to recite, as in genealogy. We recount how we are connected to our ancestors, to our homelands, our homeseas. We are asking of each other's connections to all else. On this tenth anniversary of the Ancestral Seas Pathways program making possible the connected homelands of our manō across Oceania, of our ancestral ways of knowing and caring for sea, I ask each of you to reflect. What are you connected to? What is your connector to the sacred? And how do you honor it with your life?"

"Mama, can I go get a laulau?" Junior interrupted as she took a breath.

Māihi quickly fished her voucher out of her purse.

Junior ran off with a small skip in his step.

"You know you don't have to be nervous. You're gonna do great," Kūkia told her.

"Can I tell you something?"

"Mmm?"

"I feel like, whenever I'm out in public, everyone is really nice, almost too nice, you know? Since August ..." She didn't like to say it out loud. "And I'm going to be up there, and all anyone's going to see is the sad lonely widow."

"What are you connected to? What is your connector to the sacred? And how do you honor it with your life?"

There it was. August. Kūkia hadn't known him well; August hadn't grown up with them in Pahoa. Kūkia had only really known him as an amazing sea-person. He had been out picking ʻōpihi, highly prized limpets, when he disappeared. Taken by The Sea.

"You know we've been friends for a long time ..." Kūkia started. He wished he could hug her, and could almost feel her ʻehu hair on his fingers as he imagined pulling her tight. "And I promise you, not one of us thinks that."

"You should keep going, I want to hear the rest," he continued.

"Really? You're not just being nice to me?"

"Really."

"Hmm," she said but she took up the paper again. "Ke Akua mana loa. We greet Hina, Kanaloa, and Kāne, the sacred beings we call on to hear our wishes. I pray for the people, for our lives to be good. For the young people, the sick people. We pray for the seasons to be restored, for the wellness of our lives, for fulfillment, for all beings to evade danger, sickness. That we live to become old. "

"I need to ask you something," Kūkia interrupted.

"OK."

"Don't get mad at me?"

"We'll see."

Kūkia knew he was going to regret it before he opened his mouth but he said it anyway. "You ask in your prayer, to evade danger ... to live to become old."

"Yeah?"

"So, what was that, this morning?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"You're willing to ... die ... for the manō." It wasn't a question.

Māihi looked out over the vast blue horizon and the foreboding dark gray sea-clouds. She chewed her words before she said them. "I think you hit a point where you realize that Death isn't the thing to be afraid of."

"But what would happen to Junior?"

"Gosh, Kū, it's not a big deal," she said with a shallow laugh, as though to brush it off.

"I want you to be serious ... for one moment. Before you get up in front of everyone and pray for old age." He knew she was going to be so, so mad at him for saying this and he already wished he could take it back, swallow it somehow. They had known each other forever. And he had loved her forever. And she had chosen August. The constant war raged on in his head. He thought of what her name meant. To peel, or strip, like bark or skin, and depending on its use, to escape ... by the skin of one's teeth. It was this quality, even from small-kid days, the evasive tenacity, that had drawn him in, had kept them apart.

"He has all of you. All of this," she whispered, her eyes still lost on the Faraway. "That's all I could ever hope for him."

Kūkia had known she was in deep-grief, but he had not realized until that morning that she was also standing on Leina's edge. "He's half August," he said and rose, moving away, toward the elders' tent.

"Mama!" a little voice called.

Even through the voices and drums, the voice carried and Māihi knew it was Junior.

Māihi shuffled through the crowds around the hula stage. Everyone was facing the other way, all except for her son, it seemed. She could see his small, sturdy body facing towards the ocean, standing on the high tide line of leaf debris. This was the island-point of the Pathway, where land met sea.

"August!" she called sharply, hastening to him. Junior was independent, would only cry out for a real reason.

She was about 100 feet away when she saw Her. Ina's fin was immediately recognizable for the half-shred that cut through the stiff half-moon. Ina had been a part of a tagging study many years ago, but the tag had snagged on something, and ripped. This was not one of the gentle-giants, the whale sharks they had seen this morning. Rather than the distinctive checkerboard pattern of the whale sharks they had seen that morning, Ina bore tiger stripes. For some reason, Ina's fin was not moving, but remained lodged in one spot above the water line. Māihi knew that Ina needed constant movement to get enough oxygen through her gills.

The fear that had been absent that morning pulsed through her now. "Junior," she called. "I want you come to me."

"It's OK, Mama."

He echoed the words she had used that very morning and darted forward into the water, rather than retreat.

She ran after him, for while she loved manō, she also respected them. She dashed the last 20 feet to Junior, and entered the water until she was thigh-deep, standing between August and The Sea. The waves gently splashed her, trying to knock her off of her feet, and she wiped the salt water from her lips.

"What are you doing?" Māihi said softly, trying to keep the fear from her voice. Her hands held tightly onto his shirt behind her.

"Something's wrong with Ina."
Junior had grown up learning about Kai, The Sea, from her, but most of all from August. And despite his father's disappearance, Junior had no fear.

"OK, I want you to go back and get Uncle Kū," Māihi said. He was the kahu manō, the one who would know what to do.

"Mom, there's no time."

"Junior, don't argue with me."

"Mom."

"Fine. You stay right where you are."

"You have to help her."

Māihi looked up at the tormented now-afternoon spring sky, at the incoming surf breaking over the reef beyond. She pushed backward on Junior's chest, forcing him to take a few steps back.

Māihi knew that she could not show fear, but she knew that Ina could feel her heartbeat. She took a deep breath to steady herself.

"E Kanaloanuiākea," she began to sing, remembering the words from Kūkia's tune earlier that morning. Kanaloa of the vast expanse.

She waded forward, singing as she went. "... Kanaloa noho i ka moana nui," she sang, increasing her volume as she moved forward. Kanaloa residing in the great sea.

As she moved closer to Ina, now just two feet away, the great body began to move, to thrash with agitation. Māihi was now chest deep, and she could see and feel the presence before her, of a manō that was at least twice her size.

She sang several more lines before she submerged. "Moana oʻo i ka iʻa nui, i ka iʻa iku, i ka manō i ka niuhi." Mottled sea, in the big fish, in the small fish, in the shark, in the tiger shark ... The song directly called on Ina and as Māihi released that line she submerged to see what had caught Ina in one place.

The thrill of the cool-water-shock washed over Māihi and she blinked as her eyes adjusted to the stabbing salt water. Despite the eddies of fresh water that rippled through and blurred the kai water, Māihi could see that Ina had been caught in a tangled fishing line, stuck in the reef.

Ina's back fin swayed menacingly, but she held a single, smart black eye on Māihi where she appraised her steadily. The intelligence and pride were evident.

OK, Māihi said to herself. OK.

She remained submerged, making sure that she knew exactly what they would need, when something tugged on her ankle. With a burst of bubbles, she rose to stand and whirled around to see the source.

"Dammit," she yelped as she locked eyes with Kūkia. She looked beyond him, for Junior, relieved to see him on the beach where a small crowd had gathered. More time had passed than she had thought. That was another one of the manō's magics. "You can't do that to me!"

"You kicked me," he said teasingly.

"How are you so calm?"

"You have to be, to be here."

"Well, I'm not."

"Here you are again, twice in one day."

"Hush," Māihi looked at him, already feeling more at ease. She couldn't say it but she felt the calmness that his presence usually brought her. "Did you bring a knife?"

"I brought two," he said, handing her what looked like a kitchen knife from one of the food vendors.

"She's pretty agitated," she said as he wade-swam to be level with her. Māihi wanted to reach out to him, to grab his hand for reassurance but she held back, her hand curled into a fist instead.

"I'll go around by her head, and keep her calm and you can cut?"

"Kū," she said as he gently lowered himself in the water so as not to disturb the surface. Māihi recognized that unlike this morning, her body was full of fear. First for Junior, and now for Kūkia. But also strangely, for herself.

"What is it?" he asked, still calm, steady.

"I'm afraid," she whispered.

"I can do it alone. It's OK."

"That's not what I'm saying!" She twisted her hands tightly. "I know I haven't ... I know I've been ..."

"We can do this after," he said, for he could feel his heart pounding now, and he needed to be still within himself.

"Since August ..."
There it was.
"Sometimes I feel like I've already died."

He gazed at her silently. He knew they needed to get Ina freed, and quickly. But he also knew that this needed to be said in the before.

"I'm in love with you," he said simply, flatly, looking away from her, towards the horizon instead. He had said it to her in his head a million times before, on a cassette tape that he constantly had to rewind. He had never said it out loud and he knew he wouldn't have, if it were not for the graceful, mana-coiled presence before them, for the death-pressed-to-her-chest that very morning.

As the 'you' was uttered Kanaloa shifted. Instant, obvious, the small waves that had been pushing against them where they stood, waist-high, stopped. The beach had become as a lake. Everything was still.

Māihi felt the chicken skin crawl up her arms and breasts. Holy shit she said in her head. She had never seen anything like it. She knew that the Rains, Winds, Waves, listened, knew that very occasionally, they responded. But she had never experienced it for herself. She knew in her whole being that this was not a coincidence.

Māihi reached out for his hand and he couldn't help but smile. They both submerged together.

Glossary and references (in order of appearance) Read more from Imagine 2200:

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Imagine 2200 , Fix's climate fiction contest, recognizes stories that envision the next 180 years of equitable climate progress, imagining intersectional worlds of abundance, adaptation, reform, and hope. Read the 2022 collection here. Author disclaimer: This is a fictional work, and I do not advocate for readers to engage with sharks in the ways described without experience and/or permission.

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Imagine 2200, Fix's climate fiction contest, recognizes stories that envision the next 180 years of equitable climate progress, imagining intersectional worlds of abundance, adaptation, reform, and hope. Read the 2022 collection here.
After the digivisit with her grandmother Minerva goes straight to the terrace, to pointlessly rearrange the solar lights and hunt non-existent weeds in the hydrogarden. Her fingers are still trembling, which she hates. Her throat is still thick with a suppressed sob.

It doesn't take long for Ish to come find her, how he's been doing for almost 10 years, and let his soft space expand until it meets her jagged one. His quiet is always a good quiet. A safe quiet. They work together to fix a hanging planter; one of its ties came loose in yesterday's wind and left it crooked.

Minerva runs her finger along the soft pink-and-white petals of the verbena, the flower that was always her grandmother's favorite. "Her memory's getting worse and worse," she finally says.

Ish blinks. "She forgot you called yesterday?"

"She doesn't think I call at all." Minerva feels the selfish sob again, even though she's not the one withering in quarantined hospice, even though she had more good years with her grandmother than Ish did with his. "Every time is the first time in ages."

"So it's a nice surprise."

"It's like talking to a bot." Her face flushes hot. She didn't mean to voice the Bad Thought, one of her many Bad Thoughts, but because it's Ish she extrapolates. "Like someone made a deepfake cartoon and replaced her with it. We have the same conversation every time. She asks where I am, when I'm coming home, when I'm going to have kids ..."

Ish gives her hand an absent-minded squeeze. "Keep forgetting to do that, yeah."

"Yeah." Minerva squeezes back, gives a shuddery laugh. "And then she talks about the pueblo. Always about the pueblo. Always the same stories on loop." She stares hard at the planter. "And lately I'm scared I'm replacing her. Overwriting her. Every time I see her like this, I forget a little bit of how she used to be."

"Is that how memory works?" Ish muses. "One in, one out?"

Minerva shakes her head. "I don't know. I just know it feels that way, and I hate it."

Ish wraps both arms around her; she tips her head back against his collarbone. Between the spindly branches of their pomegranate tree, the old BBVA tower juts into a bruise-purple sky. It's swirled in silicon now, solar panels taking the place of ad screens, and the top is crowned with vegetation, but Minerva knows it's not nearly enough, which is why her job is to recombine the genes of certain plants such that ...

The screen on her thumbnail pulses an acid yellow in the dusk. She worms her hand free, reads a priority message from the lab. "Another sim-grow failed," she says. Another stone to stack on her ribcage. "I should get back to work."

Even with the carbon caps in place and urban agriculture at an all-time high, Mexico City keeps getting hotter. Lately it feels as inevitable as entropy, as the decaying neurons in her grandmother's aging brain.

The lab is a dozen labs, spread through not only Mexico but Guatemala, Belize, Colombia, Chile. Places Minerva may never go in person - the application process to take any sort of flight is grueling now, a policy change she loves and hates at the same time. Instead she visits them all in her goggles, collating data, corralling people, moving through a pinwheel of virtual vistas.

She works from the cramped dining room, under the beautiful blobby red painting Ish did a few months after they moved in. She works until her eyeballs ache and her eyelids scrape. Until the goggles leave sucker marks - battling the squid, Ish calls it.

A small voice in the back of her mind tells her she is working in order to not think about her grandmother, who is crumbling away. Another voice suggests she is using her ailing grandmother to excuse the nanobionics project stalling out.

It's cyclical, and by the time she pulls the goggles off she is exhausted. Even when she shuts her eyes, the molecular models keep whirling past. She remembers her grandmother's flinty stare when she first announced she was going to be a biotech, back when her grandmother was flint and sparks and joy and fury.

Her grandmother is old enough to remember Bayer, and Monsanto before it, and she did not want her granddaughter to become a biopirata, stealing knowledge from the Indigenous farmers, giving back seeds that could only grow once. She only accepted it when she found out Minerva's mentor was from Chiapas, from a pueblo only a stone's throw away from hers.

"Better take a shower," Ish says, coming from the kitchen with a bright orange bowl of peanuts and hot sauce.

"Oh?"

"Because you stink," he says in mock solemnity, then cracks a smile. "Because there's no breeze tonight. It's going to be warm in the room."

"It's always warm in the room," Minerva says, rubbing a knuckle along her brow.

"Because I'm very sexy," Ish says. "I know. Disculpa."

Even though she is exhausted, or maybe because she is exhausted, a giddy laugh burbles up her throat. For a moment, she forgets about the never-ending emergencies. The small tragedies.

She puts off the next digivisit for two days, to spare herself the pain. She reasons that it doesn't matter, because she can monitor her grandmother's vitals from here, and her grandmother lives in a fog where time means nothing. But she knows what Ish said - So it's a nice surprise - is true, too.

For all the happiness her grandmother has given her over the years, Minerva can pay her back with these small bursts, even if they dissolve the instant the call ends. Even if she has so many other things that need doing. Even if every visit hurts.

The call connects and her grandmother's wrinkled face appears in the goggles. "Hola, abuela," Minerva says. "Soy yo."

"Hola, nena." Her voice is a husk of what it used to be. Her peering eyes are cloudy. Minerva can mouth the next words along with her. "¿Pero dónde estás?"

Minerva tells her that she is in CDMX, same as her, and will visit in person as soon as the quarantine lifts. Minerva tells her that she has her own home now, with Ish, though her grandmother only remembers him by deadname. Minerva tells her no children are pending.

"Oh." Her grandmother frowns. Her mouth works. "Oh."

Minerva can tell she is uncomfortable here in the present, adrift, so she helps her to the usual segue. "When you were a child, things were different."

Her grandmother grasps at it. "Yes," she beams, pushing silver hair back off her brown forehead. "Yes. When I was a child, do you know what I did?"

Minerva knows, but listens to the stories anyway:

How her grandmother played schoolteacher, assigning marks to every flower in the garden. How she went to the cine and decided Ultraman, who pummeled monstrous reptiles in grainy black-and-white, was her boyfriend. How the volcano coated everything in ash one day, and her family sent her away to the city. That is where the stories always stop.

This recitation is clumsier than usual, leaping from one thing to the next with no connective tissue between. Some details have been lost or jumbled. Minerva listens and nods and hums agreement, doing her duty, not so much to this grandmother but to the sharp and fierce and funny grandmother she used to have, the one who practically raised her.

Midway through the story of the bee that stung the inside of her mouth while she was eating an acacia blossom, something jolts Minerva's grandmother from the groove. She leans forward. Squints. "But where are you, Minerva?" she asks. "When are you coming home?"

Minerva feels the mudslide building behind her eyes and nose. Her chest aches with the sense of wrongness, of pointlessness. She explains it again.

The heat gets worse during Semana Santa. Bone-dry, sweltering, mocking all Minerva's efforts. The plants on the terrace wilt, spines snapped. The air chokes with dust. The problem, as she relates to Ish on a long sweaty walk through Bosque Chapultepec, is the concrete.

"There's still groundwater here," she says, swatting at a mosquito. "Hell, this city was built on a lake."

"Tenochtitlán," Ish says.

"But we plugged it all up with concrete," Minerva says.

She remembers a story of her grandmother - from the city, not the pueblo, so not one she tells anymore. When she first moved to CDMX, young and full of flint and sparks, she wanted to plant a tree outside her house, to embrace its walls. But there was not a single crack in the pavement, not a speck of dark soil.

So she conspired with a man from the electric company, who was also from Chiapas. Little by little, night by night, under the cover of darkness and the guise of city maintenance, they used his drill to make a small hole in the street outside her house.

On the day she was ready to plant the seed, she came home from Mercado de Coyoacán and found the hole stoppered with cement. Her neighbor had seen her, and did not want a tree in his street, because then everyone would plant a tree and there would be no space to park his shiny black car.

"La ciudad entera es un monumento al cemento," Minerva quotes, because that was how her grandmother finished the story, bitterly shaking her head.

"Y a los mosquitos," Ish suggests, slapping one dead against his shoulder.

Plants can grow through concrete, but they move slowly. Paving can be torn up, but the permits required to do it move even slower. That's why Minerva and her fellow biotechs have been working so tirelessly, pushing the sequencers and gene editors to their limit: there is no time.

Too many unstoppable processes have been put into motion. Too many cascade effects. Here they are lucky, with water under the city and a long history of urban farming, but many cities are not lucky. The heat point that will render them unlivable approaches as steadily as the heat death of the universe.

Unless they can make a new sort of plant entirely.

Minerva only sleeps for a few fractured hours each night. Ish's body, which she normally likes so well, is a boiler against her bare skin. The sheets are a molten tangle. The little electric fan whirs back and forth but is never enough; it only manages to suck the moisture from her eyeballs. Her head stains the pillow with sweat.

She hopes for some flash of brilliance in the liminal space between dreaming and waking. It's happened before; once she balanced a gordian equation during a high fever. But instead of solutions, her subconscious churns up nightmares. She sees a man whose beard is not a beard, but instead a web of pink capillaries with glossy black eyeballs nestled inside. She sees a woman on a beach at night, walking into the waves until they swallow both her and the radioactive candle she holds aloft.

She spends the days dazed and unsettled, battering herself against stubborn gene sequences. The sim-grows fail; she tweaks them; they fail again. The digivisits with her grandmother blur together; she listens to the stories from the pueblo over and over, answers the same questions over and over. The hospice quarantine is unending.

Minerva has another Bad Thought, which she confides to Ish: she could make a deepfake cartoon of herself, with just a fraction of a fraction of the lab's processing power, and let it nod and hum while her grandmother rambles.

"That would make everything easier," she mutters, rubbing her orbital bone. "Lately the goggles feel like they're growing onto my face."

Ish doesn't make any jokes about battling the squid. He reaches forward and runs his paint-flecked fingers gently around her tired eyes.

"Hola, nena," her grandmother mumbles, then asks the always question. "¿Dónde estás?"

Minerva gives the always answer. "Aquí en la DF, abuela."

Her grandmother frowns, opens her mouth, and Minerva knows the next question but cannot stand to answer it tonight, so she interrupts. She interrupts, and tells her grandmother everything: the stubborn gene sequence, the sweat-stain on her pillow, the constant exhaustion, the dark dreams.

How she sometimes fears she is losing her mind. How she sometimes thinks the only reason she loves plants is because they can't run away, because they need her. How she sometimes looks at Ish, funny, faithful Ish, and feels nothing at all, which must mean he doesn't need her.

It all spills out of her, a bubbling cenote deep in her gut, and finally, because she has already come so far, she voices her Bad Thought.

"I called you yesterday, you know," she says. "I call every day. But you never remember. Every day, we have the same conversation, and it feels like it's not really you at all, just a..." She tamps down her sob. "A photograph," she finishes, because her grandmother never learned about deepfakes.

Her grandmother stares at her. Minerva can see traces of surprise, anger, indignation - things that used to swirl across her grandmother's face as quickly as a summer storm. But then the confusion comes, the uncertainty. Her mouth works.

Minerva feels a horrible guilt in the pit of her stomach, a mossy black boulder plunging down into the cenote she should never have uncovered. "¿Abuela?" she whispers.

Her grandmother stares off into space with blank rheumy eyes.

"What was it like when you were a child?" Minerva asks, pleading. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Let's talk about the pueblo, okay?"

Her grandmother's gaze returns. "I am glad you are growing plants, nena," she says, hoarse. "This is very important. It reminds me of a story."

Minerva knows it will be the story of climbing a big tree, but then Señorita Cometa came on the television and her grandmother was in such a hurry to get down she jumped and broke her arm; or else the story of the bee in the acacia blossom that she nearly swallowed.

Maybe, maybe, it will be the story of the hole she drilled in the street.

"From when I was small, very small," Minerva's grandmother mumbles. "A story that my grandmother told me, about the ceibas of Chiapas. The sacred trees."

Minerva does not know this story. She feels her fingers trembling, but this time from something else, from some shred of a shred of an unnamed hope. She leans forward.

"When I was a child, I had terrible nightmares," her grandmother says, and Minerva cannot help but think of the dark beach, the tangled matrix of flesh and eyeballs. "I cried every night. So my grandmother, she made me a new pillow, using the cotton of the ceiba."

Minerva knows the tree, of course: an ecological linchpin of the Selva Lacandona, a beautiful hulking thing that can surpass forty meters, coated in spines and pink flowers. She knows its importance to the jungle and to the Maya who have lived there for thousands of years.

"My grandmother explained to me that the ceiba is a bridge between this world and the other." She raises her gnarled hands, laces her fingers. "Entre el mundo y el inframundo. Xibalbá." She gives a watery laugh. "I knew nothing about Xibalbá. My father, he was so scared of brujas, so scared of hechizos. He never liked those stories. But my grandmother, when she brought me the new pillow, she sat by my bed and she told me."

Minerva sees an expression flash like sheet lightning across her grandmother's lined face, joy and anticipation, an echo of the child she was some eighty years ago.

"When the Catholic priests translated the Popol Vuh, they made Xibalbá into hell," she says. "It's true, my grandmother told me, that Xibalbá is a death place. A dark place. But after a day in the hot sun, she asked me, is there anywhere more welcoming than the shade?"

Minerva's grandmother becomes a child in the telling, and Minerva becomes one in the listening, swept away by the images: the four towering ceibas planted by the gods, one in each corner of the cosmos, thorny branches hung with Xtabay's would-be lovers, roots reaching so deep they pierce the barrier between living and dead.

The entrance to Xibalbá itself, a tangle of vines and night-blooming flowers, glowing with an unearthly luminescence, a multicolor mirror for the heavenly bodies moving far above. Through the portal: a city for the dead, but made of living wood and flowing water, cool and damp.

"After that night, I only dreamed of Xibalbá," she finishes. "With my pillow made of ceiba cotton. Even now, I think I believe more in Xibalbá than I do in heaven or in hell." She sucks in a raspy breath. "Pero que cansada estoy."

Minerva emerges from the reverie. She can still hear the voice of her grandmother, and of her great-great-grandmother, moving through her blood. "Okay," she says, only half there. "Buenas noches, abuela."

"Buenas noches, nena," her grandmother says. "Te quiero tanto."

For the first time in months, she does not ask where Minerva is, or when she is coming home. She reaches forward with a veiny hand, and ends the call.

Minerva sits very still. Tears are collecting in the bottom of her goggles, fogging them. Tears of happiness, to see a grandmother so much closer to the one she remembers, and tears of misery, because she realizes she has been treating her grandmother like she is already dead. Preserved, entombed, untouchable.

In the lonely hospice quarantine, is it any wonder her grandmother retreats into her happy memories? With her aging brain starved for input, is it any wonder she whittles herself down to the same questions and answers?

Maybe the deviation tonight was a fluke, the vagaries of collapsing neurons. But maybe it was something else. Either way, Minerva sees now that she has been distancing herself, preparing herself, for a very long time - because she knows that when her grandmother dies, it will tear her in two.

She pulls the goggles from her face with a tear-slick pop. She cries for a while. Afterwards she crawls into bed, wraps her arms around Ish, and whispers te quiero tanto into the nape of his sunbrowned neck.

The days are hot and the sim-grows fail, but the digivisits have changed.

Minerva does not try to burn away the fog, how she did that first night, but she does not sit in silence, nodding, humming. She prods at her grandmother, makes the jokes they used to make together. She presents the latest problems from the lab. She tells her about the lizards chasing each other in circles around the terrace, about the lotus bulb she bought in Xochimilco.

She is sifting for flint. Searching for sparks. Sometimes she sees it is tiring to her grandmother, and feels guilty, and lets her retreat into the stories. But the stories have changed, too: they are less and less about the pueblo, with its beautiful flowers and dirt streets, and more about the jungle, about the deep roots and deeper caves snaking downward toward Xibalbá.

It carries over into Minerva's dreams: no more drowning women, no more watchful monsters. Instead she dreams she is making a hole in the street with an electric drill, boring through the concrete to the underworld below. Molecular models drift up from the portal like phantoms, joining and breaking just beyond her fingertips.

Her grandmother tells her that Xibalbá is not a reward or a punishment, only part of a natural cycle that must be maintained. The rain falling, the sun rising, the stars moving - all cycles that were once maintained by sacrifice, which was not always the ugly fearful thing described by Catholic priests, anymore than Xibalbá was always a place of torture and trickery.

The sim-grows fail, but in more interesting ways. Every night Minerva's grandmother gives her benediction, tells her that the city of wood and water is coming, and Minerva cannot help but feel that she is right. That something ancient, something ancestral, has taken root not only in her grandmother but also in her.

Ish notices, too. "You're sleeping better," he says one morning, over the bubble and sputter of the frying pan - eggs from the neighbor's hen, onion and jitomate from the hydrogarden. "I even heard you laughing."

"In my sleep?" Minerva demands, clattering plates out of the cupboard.

"It was terrifying at first," Ish admits. "But then I started laughing, too."

Minerva laughs now, trying to remember the fractured dream: climbing an enormous flowering tree, pricking her hands on the thorns but feeling no pain. She shovels two bites of breakfast into her mouth, scooped steaming from the pan, then runs to get her goggles.

Ceiba pentandra was sequenced by machine learning years ago, one of a hundred species rendered down to its genetic code and evaluated for utility. But that was years ago, before recombination tech reached its current heights, and Minerva's lab has been focused on adaptable lianas, carbon-sucking mosses.

When she goes to access its simulated DNA, hers is not the only user icon on the file. The lab in Guatemala, in cloudy Kob'an, is already at work. She pulls up a call window, sees Eduardo, one of her collaborators, with dark rings under his eyes but a gleam inside them. They speak over each other, but she knows they have dreamed the same dream.

The lab in Belize joins them a moment later: Celeste, the youngest biotech on the project, still tying up her jet-black curls. The three of them coordinate their efforts, sectioning up the code, hunting for the gene or genes they saw in the inframundo. Eduardo is already feeding possibilities into the sim queue.

Minerva works until her eyeballs ache and her eyelids scrape. Sometimes Ish pushes a glass of water into her hand, a thoughtful phantom in the void beyond her goggles. Sometimes she stretches her legs under the table, feels the flex of far-off tendons. Most often she is still as a rooted tree, only her eyes moving. She turns off all exterior notifications.

When the key arrives, a snippet of genetic material buried deep, a tiny unexpressed fragment of the ceiba's long history, Minerva recognizes it like family. So do the others; they all three highlight it in nearly the same instant. They clear the sim queue, request processing power. They watch the sim-grow begin.

It's close to midnight when Minerva finally pulls off her goggles. Ish is slumped snoring across from her, head nesting in his folded arms. "It's going to work," she says, and the words are stones lifted from her chest. "We'll need to make tweaks. We'll need to run more sims. But it's going to work."

Ish only drools, but she doesn't mind. There is someone else she wants to tell. She can stand the goggles a few minutes more; she is reaching to put them back on, to call her grandmother, when she sees her thumbnail screen is acid yellow. The message is not from the lab.

Her stomach plunges. She calls, and the hospice nurse answers. Explanation washes over her and only a few words emerge intact: arterial blockage, successive strokes, the second fatal. Her grandmother's vitals had been so steady for so many weeks. So steady Minerva thought nothing of switching off notifications.

"She was conscious for a few moments in between," the nurse says. "She asked where she was, and when she was going home." He pauses. "And then she said Xibalbá was calling. Nos vemos en noviembre."

Minerva pulls the goggles off, and weeps.

It's Día de Muertos, and Minerva is up on the terrace. The ochre sky is darkening, billowing clouds illuminated by jags of distant lightning. She leans back in her chair and puts her feet on the other, head tipped back to watch. It used to feel like life or death, waiting for the clouds to buckle and split, waiting for the first droplet of rain.

But that was the old days, before sim-grows became reality and Xibalbá - there could be no other name for the plant, the nanobionic hybrid of artificial genes and ancient ones - took root. Now the garden is flourishing and the hydroponic systems are quaint, antiquated.

Her guava trees grow from the concrete, fed by Xibalbá's omnipresent filament web. Her orchids and malamadres explode from the walls in a beautiful chaos. And when she turns her head, to look over the edge of the terrace, she sees the city her great-great-grandmother dreamed of.

Xibalbá snakes through every cubic meter of concrete, coats it with dark green tendrils. It bears little resemblance to the ceiba that completed its genetic code. No sharp spines, no seedpods full of cotton. But it has something even better, a final tweak that was not strictly necessary for its success.

"Ready to go?" Ish asks, appearing at the top of the vine-wreathed metal staircase, sleek white skull mask in hand. He holds it in front of his face. "No more work today. Parties only."

Down below, the party is in full swing. The streets are pulsing with music and laughter, costumed revelers trickling back from the parade, mingling with their families. Most of the decorations are unchanged, but the strings of LED bulbs are no more. Instead, sprouting from the vine-swatched streetlamps, from the overgrown skyscrapers, bioluminescent flowers of every conceivable color bloom through the dark.

For tonight, the whole of Mexico City is her grandmother's ofrenda. But she made a smaller one, too, downstairs, and snipped the very brightest flowers from the verbena to lay across it. She takes a deep breath, inhaling the cool florid air, picturing the childish joy that must be on her grandmother's face even now. For a moment, everything is still and perfectly preserved.

"Ready," she says, and rejoins the cycle.
Read more from Imagine 2200:

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Imagine 2200 , Fix's climate fiction contest, recognizes stories that envision the next 180 years of equitable climate progress, imagining intersectional worlds of abundance, adaptation, reform, and hope. Read the 2022 collection here. After the digivisit with her grandmother Minerva goes straight to the terrace, to pointlessly rearrange the solar lights and hunt non-existent weeds in the hydrogarden.

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Imagine 2200, Fix's climate fiction contest, recognizes stories that envision the next 180 years of equitable climate progress, imagining intersectional worlds of abundance, adaptation, reform, and hope. Read the 2022 collection here.

The sea was the lone ossuary, and as such, there lay no headstone or visible cemetery to draw forth constant mournfulness, just the big, beautiful blue and its new attendants. It would only be the monoecious mango tree that would last, both male and female, one tall unit of green flourishing smack in the middle of blue waters. Tonie was perched on the largest branch, positioned at the highest angle, his full head of thick brown hair brushing the sky like cloud kissing cloud. He shared the tree with one corbeaux that would rattle across the sea every few days to bring back news and sometimes food. The Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Paria, and the Columbus Channel all coalesced into one vast expanse, taking with it the Caribbean island formerly known as Gahara, swallowing the coastline bit by bit, devouring the capital city, munching away at roadways, year after year taking fragments of Gahara out into the sea until one tree surrounded by a fertile mound and reef was left. It was the corbeaux that informed him that many of the birds, such as the kiskadee and the scarlet ibis, which was the former national bird, had migrated to New Conland. In the past, Tonie had watched the last moaning agouti tremble under the moonlight and disappear the next morning, only to find it tangled in seaweed by afternoon, tugged away into the sea like so many other things. The corbeaux fretted the treetop, then took rest on a branch next to Tonie and spread its black wings, billowing like a flag in the wind, drying itself off after scouring the seascape, bringing his friend fresh fish, which Tonie would cook under a fire as the sun went down. Tonie had a leather notebook of 1,000 pages and three pens. Adamant that the Gahara language should not be lost, he took note of each word that fell into his memory like ripe fruit. This filled up the hours of each day. After observing Tonie write down word after word, the corbeaux would give him the title "lexicographer." It was a word that the bird had heard across the ocean, as people from all different cultures and lost countries were scrambling to document their dying languages. Each culture elected its own lexicographers to make tangible the specter of the past through words. The robots could only do so much, already occupied with rebuilding the new world through artificial intelligence. They were working to constitute a world that won't lose its balance, so they seldom focused on language revival, leaving the humans to conduct any archiving of their linguistic past.

Tonie walked around the mound of earth that surrounded the tree and wrote down any word that jumped out of scenes rooted in his memory, like the great tsunami. He was but a child then, homeless and languishing, when a wave blanketed the sky like God's robe on judgment day. People ran through the streets like erratic ants scampering north, everyone shouting, "Allyuh, look, look, run!" And as the episode ran through his mind he wrote:
"Allyuh" - meaning all of you; you all; everyone
While the wave molested the city, people ran straight ahead past buildings and took off up the highway in their cars, but Tonie ran up toward the sky. He aimed for the tallest tree and held on for dear life. He would go from tree to tree as the island dissolved over time, holding on with the power of a sloth or flying snake. He would look down from the branches of a mango tree and watch as the rich fought over yachts and people broke into banks to grab money as the water rushed in, swallowing the first floor, then the second. He heard someone say, "All this commesse! Everybody fighting for money! But the way things looking, we should be fighting for flights out of here before everything gone and all ah we dead!"
"Commesse" - meaning confusion, disarray, and gossip
Some people would spot him up a tree peeking down at them and shout, "You big maco, you just macoin everybody from up there. You will drown when the waters swallow that tree! Watch and see!"
"Maco" - meaning someone who intentionally minds other people's business; an eavesdropper
But he would not drown, not like the others. For he was always in movement, always in flux. And just like the corbeaux, he watched death happen around him, peering down from branches all around the island as people killed people for money to buy boat tickets, as luxury yachts disappeared beyond the horizon, as planes left the airport to hide behind clouds, threading the skies to destinations unknown. As time elapsed the trade winds brought with them harsher waters and took with them hundreds, then thousands, then millions. Soon enough, Tonie would find solace at the center of Gahara Island with a small bag of collected gems he saved along the way; jewels he grabbed floating in the rivers that were once roadways; hundred dollar bills with the face of President Lara, the first man to declare the island "a diminishing entity," heralding the mass exit; a leather notebook with a thousand pages along with three pens that he seized from an abandoned bookstore; some articles of clothing, which he washed and reused; eight lighters and some fruits that he ate only when they started getting too ripe to last any longer. He waited until the banana turned the color of his skin before consuming it, stretching the lifespan of the fruit as long as he could because he thought he may never have it again.

But he would not drown, not like the others. For he was always in movement, always in flux.

It was at the center of Gahara where he first met his friend the corbeaux.
"Corbeaux" - meaning a black vulture
Tonie would wipe the yampee out of the corbeaux's eyes before it ventured out across the seas.
"Yampee" - meaning mucus found around the corner of the eye
Tonie and the corbeaux made a new language for themselves, a pidgin of caw-caws and vowels, a vivid understanding. Their ancestors spoke through them. What was lost in translation was found in the echoes of waves crashing against the small barrier reef that had developed around One Tree Island, protecting the last two inhabitants from further devastation. Conversations between Tonie and the corbeaux unraveled into past ruminations and future ideas. They spent many hours on nomenclature. After looking down into Tonie's notebook of Gahara words, the corbeaux caw-cawed assertively.

"You are the only one left, so you should begin naming things. What do you want things to be called after a hundred tomorrows?"

"It don't have much things left to name anyway."

"I reject that statement."

"What you seeing around here that need a name?"

"For starters, this place is no longer Gahara. Gahara has long been destroyed. So what do you want me to call this place when I fly to the other distant lands and I tell them about my friend Tonie? What is this new island called?"

"Is just one big tree and some sand and grass around it ... and well, the barrier reef."

"It's still a home, our home."

"Alright, corbeaux. When people ask where you fly from, tell them you come from One Tree Island."

"Sounds good. Not as creative as it could be, but appropriate."

And so the corbeaux would tell birds in New Conland and other lands of One Tree Island, and of Tonie. Soon would come the naming of unfamiliar sea creatures that visited the island, like snakes that had grown three times their usual size since the island shrunk. It was an overcast afternoon the first time the waters rumbled as though a submarine were afoot. The tree shook and the Earth trembled as a heavy terror rattled the edges of the reef. Tonie emerged from his slumber atop the tree to look down at a colossal snake that had wrapped itself around the island twice. The corbeaux had told him that some animals had adapted to the rising temperatures and even doubled or tripled in size, especially with an absence of land predators. This snake had migrated from a land unknown and took the night to rest at One Tree Island. The corbeaux flew down and landed on the back of the sprawling and impossible snake to get as much information as it could to take back up to Tonie, whom he now considered the protector of the island. The corbeaux spent around half an hour with the snake, who spoke through soft rattles that traveled through the air like rhythms set to the waves, making music under moonlight. When he had gotten an earful, he flew back up to Tonie.

The tree shook and the Earth trembled as a heavy terror rattled the edges of the reef. Tonie emerged from his slumber atop the tree to look down at a colossal snake that had wrapped itself around the island twice.

"She said that she was once an inhabitant of Gahara but was carried away with the currents during the great devastation," said the corbeaux, perched on a branch.

"So she come back to live?" Tonie spoke to the corbeaux in whispers, not wanting to offend the snake that was just a few feet below him.

"She would like to stay. She thought the entire island had been swallowed, but she heard from the birds about my tellings of you and the two-gendered mango tree. How we've been here thriving for some time. She's brought some seafruit with her, for you." The corbeaux tilted his beak down to show Tonie the seafruit. Large and round. A rare fruit that the sea vomits up every now and then. It sometimes took months before he saw one tucked between rocks and corals on the reef. But down below, a dozen seafruit lay like golden eggs near the head of the snake, glimmering and wet. Tonie climbed down and approached the snake, her head the size of a car, moving slowly with each turn.

"She says that she is grateful for your warm welcome," said the corbeaux, translating her vocables for Tonie. "She says that she has grown tremendously, which is no fault of hers, but she is able to swim to the deepest parts of the ocean where seafruit is abundant and grows in minutes. She's happy to share."

Tonie smiled at the snake, soft to the touch and friendly to the ear. Who knew what else lurked out in the open, out there in the otherworlds that had become so far removed from the Caribbean? The arrival of the magnificent snake brought with it something familiar to Tonie, a sense of community and motherliness that he lacked while living alone on the streets of Gahara, and on the tree of the island.

He looked into her eyes and said, "You doh have to ask permission to stay anywhere anymore. I own nothing here. If I am a Gahara boy, you are the Gahara snake, and if I am the boy from One Tree Island, you are the snake from One Tree Island. Be at peace. We will understand each other soon." And he took a seafruit with him back up to the top of the tree, as the corbeaux flew out into the darkness to tell of the arrival of the Gahara snake.

The eternal glare of sunlight beamed on One Tree Island and the corbeaux flew down onto the back of the snake hot and heavy, calling Tonie to come down and hear the news. After some nights away, the corbeaux returned with a glimmer in its eyes, and as Tonie climbed down the tree and the snake twisted her head to face her island mates, the corbueax's wings grew fussily thunderous.

"There's someone who speaks our language," said the corbeaux. "A woman. I flew west of the island for the first time and found her. She speaks the way you do, and I've even heard her say some of the words you have written in your notebook. Words like 'jusso' and 'leggo.' She has hair like yours, full and buoyant. Perfectly smooth, velvety black skin that glimmers under the sun and shines under the moon. I call her Gipani, for her beauty reminds me of the frangipani trees that once framed the parliament of Gahara Island. She reminded me of our home before the oceanic rapture."

Tonie's eyes, keen and deep-set, moved between the snake and the corbeaux, analyzing the information he had just received.

"You talk to her?" he asked. "You ask how she end up so far west of the island?"

"We spoke briefly," replied the corbeaux. "During the rapture, she snuck onto the yacht that left with the remaining members of the Jewel family, the last of the aristocrats from Gahara. She was their housekeeper. They have all died, but she washed up on an unusually mountainous island. She said that she has been in communication with those of the Coral tribe from New Conland. This tribe is genderless, both fish and homosapien. They move in unison, an underwater shoal half the size of our friend the snake. This Gipani woman told me that when a shoal rippled through the water singing songs from yesteryear, that's when she knew it was the body of someone swallowed by the relentless waters during the rapture, split into a hundred fishes, living new life under the sea. They communicate through calypsos that boom through the waves, ending their sentences with the refrain, 'Santimanitay!' One day they sang to her in fragments, telling her that they had spotted the hull of a ship threading the waters. They believe that New Conland is picking up stranded people like her and you, Tonie, hoping to bring them back to the last known country, facilitating the creation of a diasporic nation. They are coming for you, Tonie, you and Gipani and whoever else is out there alone in their humanhood. You have only to wait, they will find you!"

"They are coming for you, Tonie, you and Gipani and whoever else is out there alone in their humanhood. You have only to wait, they will find you!"

The snake bowed its head, making a large impression in the sand. "So does this mean that Tonie will be going away to the new nation, leaving me here all alone?" she asked.

"Not ahtall!" shouted Tonie, his chest heaving with anxiety. He was excited to learn about the existence of Gipani, a woman who, just like him, had rooted connections to Gahara, but on the other hand, he had grown content with his life here on One Tree Island with the corbeaux and the snake. He had become accustomed to the sea now being rich and ambrosial with no debris or turtles strangled by plastic in sight. He wondered how the temper of the waters changed across the horizon and how well he would fare among the new nation. He looked at the corbeaux and the snake, looked beyond their eyes and toward the impossible reef that circled their island, a surprisingly resistant barrier formed from disturbed waters, refusing to deteriorate even after the snake slithered over the back of a thousand corals, mollusks making a home on her marvelously smooth skin in the process. There was no vanishing language or unfamiliar paralysis here, everything was well and safe, a healing was taking place through the reef and the roots of the mango tree, through the branches and the warm snake, through the pages of his notebook that held the words of the only nation he knew. He was the lexicographer, the last documented preserver of his nation's language. He had made up his mind that if a ship were to come, he would refuse to go. He tore a piece of paper out of his notebook and began writing a letter to Gipani.

"Make haste, corbeaux." Tonie called the corbeaux over to his shoulder. "Come take this letter for me. I want you to carry this westward to your friend Gipani."

"What are you going to propose to her, Tonie?" asked the snake.

"I going and ask she to come stay here with we. I not leaving you all here. I not leaving my home. So she have a decision to make, I already make mine. This is the last touchstone of the Caribbean, I think she'll want to be part of protecting it."

Tonie folded the letter and sent the corbeaux off toward the mountainous island, hoping that Gipani would still be there by the time he arrived. This time, he asked the snake to go along with the bird, so the woman would have a ride to the island if she so needed.

The woman slept between a village of rocks tucked into the harsh, craggy mountains. She felt them before she saw them. The turquoise waters lashing against the mountains like waves covering a cargo ship at night. A sea snake was approaching. She had spotted only one white snake months ago, but it had never stopped, it just threaded the surface, depositing some seafruit along the way. But this was not the same snake, this one moved more purposefully, the mountains trembled moreso, this one was coming up on land. She looked up as the wind whipped under the corbeaux's wings. "What a way to make an entrance," she thought. The letter dropped near her legs as the corbeaux greeted her with thunderous caw-caws. This was only the second time she had the pleasure of the bird's acquaintance.

"What is all this?" she asked, her head shifting between the bird and the snake.

"Hello, Gipani," said the snake. "Our friend on One Tree Island has a message for you."

The woman looked at the elongated, limbless reptile, whose tail she could not find for it had wrapped itself around the mountains, the rest of its body getting lost in the edges and cracks of forest. "My name is not Gipani, who tell you that is my name?" The snake raised its head toward the corbeaux. "I'm very sorry," he said. "It's just that I never got your name, and you reminded me of a beautiful flower from Gahara, the frangipani. So I told them that I call you Gipani." She released a small smile and said, "Well, that's kind of you, but my name is Sahoora, so you can call me that." The snake and the corbeaux repeated her name in unison: "Sahoooora," the sound reverberating through the lush green of the mountains all the way down to the sea. She took the letter, read it quietly, then folded the letter back in two and said to the corbeaux, "I'm sorry, but I can't come with you. I'm going with the ship when it comes." The snake sighed. The corbeaux flew down closer to Sahoora.

"Please reconsider, you will be returning to your home. I know the island sounds very small considering that it's just one tree surrounded by reef, but it's bigger than you think. And I have flown to New Conland. I have listened to the songs of many shoal tribes from the outerworld, and it's true, they are building again, but we owe it to these islands to protect them. You may not have noticed but your skin is becoming tougher, the soles of your feet as rugged as the mountains you call home. Island homosapiens are adapting too. Soon you won't have to ride a ship or a snake to get around, and you'll be able to spend hours in these sacred waters breathing through your skin like a salamander. Tonie doesn't see it yet, but he is forming gills, small ones on his cheeks and his back. The people of the new nation in New Conland won't be able to adapt, and robots are incapable of such. In the turn of time, only the small islands will last. They just don't know it yet." The snake nodded in agreement and said, "I'll take you home safely, Sahoora, but the decision is yours."

"Soon you won't have to ride a ship or a snake to get around, and you'll be able to spend hours in these sacred waters breathing through your skin like a salamander."

Sahoora released a long sigh. She missed Gahara. She missed how the sun treated the island like a special child and the rain watered the souls of the people just enough to keep them hopeful. She was not surprised to learn that some piece of the island had remained, because Gaharians always said that God was a Gaharian, and will spare them the full wrath of whatever woe was to come in the future. But she was curious about the outerworld, she imagined the robots and the mixing of cultures, the beauty there might be in being welcomed to new beginnings.

"I will visit your One Tree Island, only so to feel some familiar earth again. Just to break off a branch or something of Gahara, so I could carry it with me to New Conland when the ship comes."

Tonie sat in the tree and watched the corbeaux scan the sky while the snake zoomed into One Tree Island with the woman on her back. She wore a swirly sable dress, covered up with a gray jacket, clothing which seemed to have withstood the years. Tonie saw himself in her silhouette, he saw his hair in hers holding steady against the wind as the snake sliced through the waters. He felt like he knew her, her face as familiar as the seasons. The snake caressed the reef with her body and wrapped herself around the island as Sahoora jumped off into the sand. "Geez and ages, well look at this nah!" she said, exclaiming at the tree, which worked its way up into the clouds. Tonie grabbed his book and quickly wrote down:
"Geez and ages" - meaning an expression of shock
Then Tonie climbed down and approached while the corbeaux introduced her. "Tonie, this is my friend Sahoora from the island out west. I've been calling her Gipani all along when she had a much more wonderful name." Sahoora looked down upon Tonie, a mere teenager, maybe 19 or 20 to her 50-odd years,"but you is just a small man, how you make it here alone all this time," she said.

"When the sea did take back the land I just followed trees, now I here, but I real happy here," Tonie said. "You could be happy here too, yuh know! The tree real big and you could sleep anywhere yuh want."

Sahoora's ears perked up at his voice. "It real nice to hear another Gaharian talk again," she said. "I real miss hearing another voice like mine. But I must tell the truth, I only staying here until the ship come for me. I sure your friend the corbeaux tell you about the shoals and their song, about the new nation and how they coming to save we."

"Yes, Miss Sahoora, he does tell me everything, that is how we live, nothing is secret between us here. That is how we thrive. But I don't think you should go to New Conland. The shoals have a human element to them that tricky, and I trust the corbeaux and his sightings. He went to New Conland plenty times, and he even tell me that I am a lexicographer for the Gahara language, just like appointed lexicographers over in the new nation."

"Well, Mr. Lexicographer, I hear you, but I already make up my mind. I see enough hurricane and tsunami, enough death and destruction, enough wrath right here on this island. It have betterment across the seas. The people not living like before."

"We not living like before, either, we right here living different, and the earth in and around this one tree moving different too! Miss Sahoora, we have a whole new world right here, we could make so much more from it. The color of the sea changes all the time, it keep getting clearer and clearer. The reef keep expanding under moonlight with sightings of new mini islands by the corbeaux every few months. Yesterday, I take a swim and realize I could stay underwater for much longer than ever before, it was like the water shapeshifted into air and then the air shapeshifted into sky. I could breathe free and look into the deep blue. The other day I swim down to take a look into the never ending abyss and nothing was there, Miss Sahoora, no evidence of time before time. No wreckages or vehicles, no cell phones or debris from buildings that crumble and clatter under the waters. It was like the sea rid itself of the loathsome and offensive disease of human industries and vice. Time like it reset itself. But who know what still lingering in the outerworlds?" He paused and pulled out a large, succulent mango from his hair and began peeling it. "Who know if they even have good food in New Conland?"

Everything he said was true. The water never tasted better. Fruits were plump, and the sea provided all the information she needed.

Sahoora's memory of her time on the mountainous island leaked into her present. Everything he said was true. The water never tasted better. Fruits were plump, and the sea provided all the information she needed. This island with its one tree and the snake and the corbeaux seemed even more prepared for the future. Every time she blinked she felt like the reef expanded and the branches of the tree stretched before her eyes. And although she still wanted to see the outerworld, she would put up no resistance to the boy's efforts to make her stay. She would bide her time and stick to her instincts, waiting for the ship to arrive, escorted by shoals and sunlight singing "Santimanitay!"

It is midday and the snake hisses heavily with her head cocked to the sky. Something is coming. Sahoora and Tonie rub their eyes and look down at the trembling waters. She had made herself comfortable on a branch near the canopy of the tree, stretching her legs and embracing the breeze. It's been months since she last spoke about the ship, in fact she was enjoying herself here on One Tree Island so much that the idea that some ship was coming to save her had momentarily slipped into her forgetfulness. But the corbeaux came flying in at top speed caw-cawing, and the singing shoals could be heard all the way to the emergent layer of the tree. The ship was coming! Tonie and Sahoora climbed down and stood near the barrier reef as the snake hissed louder than before. A raucous, modern ship could be seen breaking the horizon. It was as large as a cruise ship and as loud as a train, speeding across the ocean similarly to the cars that existed before the rapture. It didn't take long for the four inhabitants of the island to notice the strangeness that accompanied the ship. It had been years since they had seen it or smelt it, the smoke, the clouds of blackness that messed up the air. And the flashes, what were those flashes? Cameras! Click-click-click could be heard as loud as the shoals. The people crowded the front of the ship to take photos of the island, of Sahoora and Tonie, of the snake. Different languages could be heard spilling out into the air. Congested accents thick like algae fighting for room to untangle their sentences. It was mayhem. The ship approached and parked, barely touching the reef, then a tall and seemingly anthropomorphic robot came forward.

"We are here to collect you and bring you into future-modernity." The robot spoke melodiously, reaching out its hand, which kept extending and extending out of the ship over the reef over the snake and toward Tonie and Sahoora, waiting for them to shake it. With furrowed eyebrows showing his discontent, Tonie stepped backward, closer to the tree. The snake would not stop hissing. Sahoora stood flummoxed, stuck between Tonie and the mechanical hand reaching out to "save" her. She grew despondent. The people on deck grabbed hold of her memory and put the past back in front of her; the ship was a microcosm of smeared history repeating itself. These people perched garishly on the ship were not free, they were regressing, becoming past versions of themselves and their ancestors who sang beneath the sea. They were at the genesis of building catastrophes at the outerworld and Sahoora wanted them gone, gone back to where they came from.

"I not going. I not leaving this island. Take your ship and your people and your smoke and your mechanic hand away and go. And anybody on the ship who tucked between mayhem and disaster, come off and come home, who want to stay here could stay." And as Sahoora spoke the branches of the tree extended, the roots roped themselves deeper into the sea, the earth stretched itself further, pushing the barrier reef out, pushing the ship back out to sea. The robotic arm retreated as the ship shook from left to right and the island expanded while the shoals sang calypsos that turned the waves into a commanding force, pulling them back out into sea. The mounds on the island were flung wide open and new soil sprung out like fountains. The land swelled, the mango tree thickened, and new trees sprung up near the reef. And as the ship retreated, a dozen people jumped off into the waters and swam to the reef shouting, "We want to stay, help us, please help us." And Tonie listened to the shoals closely, and realized that it was a keening, a warning all along. They were deceased islanders wailing through song, and he remembered what an old gentleman had said before Gahara was gone about the foreigners causing problems in the Caribbean; he had called them invaders. "Any mess dem do does come back to we, them so don't care 'bout we, they just want to use we, Santimanitay!" Tonie had asked what the word meant and the memory of its meaning hit him like a headache. He climbed up the tree and grabbed his notebook, holding on for dear life as the island made a country of itself, and wrote:

" Santimanitay" - meaning without humanity, without mercy

And the island expanded tenfold as new snakes and shoals surrounded the barrier reef, watching the ship get cast back to the outerworld by the waves.
Read more from Imagine 2200:

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Imagine 2200 , Fix's climate fiction contest, recognizes stories that envision the next 180 years of equitable climate progress, imagining intersectional worlds of abundance, adaptation, reform, and hope. Read the 2022 collection here. The sea was the lone ossuary, and as such, there lay no headstone or visible cemetery to draw forth constant mournfulness, just the big, beautiful blue and its new attendants.

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Why should you read sci-fi superstar Octavia E. Butler? 

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Why should you read sci-fi superstar Octavia E. Butler? 

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Ted-Ed | 2019

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Why should you read sci-fi superstar Octavia E. Butler? - Ayana Jamieson and Moya Bailey

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Changing the World Through Stories: 7 Tips for Writing Cli-Fi

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Changing the World Through Stories: 7 Tips for Writing Cli-Fi

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Our world is changing. It's changing because we've failed to act on the climate crisis, despite decades of warnings. It's changing because of decades of political deadlock and denial. It's changing because the media hasn't treated the climate emergency like the crisis it is. The irony is that if we refuse to change our behavior at this late stage, then our behavior will be changed by the climate crisis.

Many people credit Dr. James Hansen's testimony to the US Congress in 1988, as the moment when the world first woke up to the climate crisis. Since then, 33 years have elapsed. We're coming up to the 26th COP (Conference of the Parties), which was created to implement targets and action to address the climate emergency. Yet meaningful action still hasn't happened, despite the fact that the science has never been clearer or starker.

In trying to overcome this inertia, we need to look at new methods of communication. In particular, we need to consider stories and storytelling. Stories have played a fundamental role in human evolution. Walter Fisher went as far as labeling us as "Homo narrans" or creatures of story. In The Storytelling Animal, Jonathan Gottschall prefers the phrase "Homo fictus" or fiction man, "The great ape with the storytelling mind." But despite our predisposition towards stories, the canon of climate change stories is nowhere near deep or wide enough.

Cli-fi is a term coined by Dan Bloom. It stands for 'climate fiction', a new subgenre of literary fiction. According to research by Adam Trexler, there are around 150 works of cli-fi. However, the estimate included books that were not necessarily related to anthropogenic climate change and the research was also published in 2015. So this number is likely to have changed.

In 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, Yuval Noah Harari says that, "Art plays a key role in shaping people's view of the world, and in the twenty-first-century science fiction is arguably the most important genre of all, for it shapes how most people understand things like AI, bioengineering and climate change." If this is indeed the case, then there is considerable space for more novels in the cli-fi subgenre. In addition, there is also a necessity for more stories, because they can shape how we see the world and how we behave.

Authors can therefore be a major part of the climate solution. But they may wonder where to begin and how to go about writing cli-fi. So I've condensed a set of ideas into seven practical tips below. These are by no means the only ones to follow, and it's not my intention to create a single homogenous canon of literature. In this sense, these ideas aren't prescriptive, but rather suggestions for trying to educate, engage and bring about climate action.

Here are seven tips for writing cli-fi.

Many books in the cli-fi cannon are dystopian and feature bleak scenarios. This is understandable given the concerns about runaway climate change. However, this carries with it the risk of creating a sense of apathy about the climate crisis, which in turn steers people away from focusing on solutions. As such, grounding a story in the here and now enables the reader to see what's going on while we still have time to act.

A film like The Day After Tomorrow is a good example of a plot-driven story about climate change (albeit scientifically inaccurate on many accounts). Another way to interweave climate change into a story is through themes. A theme is more subtle and could focus on one or more components of the climate crisis.

Characters are at the heart of any good story. Ensure you create rounded and believable characters who feel as real as the people you come across in everyday life. Characters enable readers to live vicariously and empathize with their predicaments. This is one of the major areas where a cli-fi book can pack more emotional punch than a non-fiction climate science book. To ignore this point is to forgo the opportunity of creating a world-changing story.

What age group is your book for? Are the language and content appropriate for them? Will it also fall under a larger genre, such as romance, adventure, crime, thriller etc.? Research what your target audience reads and analyze effective writing styles.

If you're trying to highlight the impacts of the climate crisis, then the setting in which the story takes place will be of importance. The polar regions, the rainforests, the coral reefs, low-lying cities and many other places are at risk from climate change and may show your reader the real-world impacts of the climate emergency.

Cli-fi authors can be science communicators. There is no shortage of science to inform your work, the most recent IPCC report had 14,000 references. But how you choose to use the science matters. If it's dumped in, you'll lose the reader. Remember you're writing a story first, and communicating science second. Maybe the science can inform how your characters behave, the events they attend or the conversations they have. Maybe it can influence your setting and the events that transpire there. You can use it subtly or overtly. However you chose to utilize the science, it's important not to let it overwhelm your story and lose the reader's attention.

Many of the dystopian cli-fi books on the market are set in a radically changed world. But one potential issue with such a setting is that it may create a sense of apathy as previously mentioned, especially if ideas aren't presented for how to avoid such a future from unfolding. Cli-fi can provide hope by showing what actions people can take now to help address the climate crisis. Many people will learn about climate change through cli-fi books and authors have a golden opportunity to present them with solutions and ideas.

Given the low number of books in this subgenre, I believe there is scope for a new wave of cli-fi. There are already some books being published that have the potential to bring about change. The example I'd like to talk about is the best cli-fi book I've read and one of my favorite books of all time; The Last Bear by Hannah Gold.

In The Last Bear, April Wood and her meteorologist father travel to Bear Island in the Arctic Circle, as her father is sent there to run a weather station. The island used to be home to many bears, but due to the disappearance of Arctic sea ice as a result of climate change, no bears remain. Except for one. Readers follow the heartbreakingly beautiful friendship between April and Bear, in what has been described as "a battle cry for our planet".

It is for all intents and purposes a masterclass in how to write engaging cli-fi which is grounded in the present with science behind it, and cli-fi authors would do well to read it. But more than that, it's a page-turning classic, that has love, connection and compassion at its core. Books like The Last Bear are the kind of cli-fi books that can ultimately change the world because they capture the human condition and resonate with each of us.

As authors we have a responsibility to try and make a difference while we still have time to act on the climate crisis. We have one of the most powerful tools at our disposal - the power to influence the way people think and behave. It's time cli-fi wakes people up to the crisis. It's time authors, agents and publishers take cli-fi seriously. It's time to write like our lives depend on it, because with the direction we're heading in, that may just be the case.
Ryan Mizzen is an Author and Freelance Writer. The new cli-fi children's picture book in his 'Time to Care' series is Nanook and the Melting Arctic, which seeks to introduce the topic of climate change to 5-7 year olds in a fun rhyming text. Nanook and the Melting Arctic can be purchased from Amazon's global stores, including and now.

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Changing the World Through Stories: 7 Tips for Writing Cli-Fi

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Our world is changing. It's changing because we've failed to act on the climate crisis, despite decades of warnings. It's changing because of decades of political deadlock and denial. It's changing because the media hasn't treated the climate emergency like the crisis it is.

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Six rules for putting climate change into your fiction

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Six rules for putting climate change into your fiction

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Six rules for putting climate change into your fiction

Writers, especially new writers, are on the lookout for rules that will guarantee, or at least enhance the potential for success in the artistic or commercial marketplace. If you're interested in writing in the new genre of "climate fiction," here's a few boundaries that will help you understand your role as climate storyteller.

1. Climate change is the driving force behind the narrative. The impact of long-term change in the earth's climate is the single most important factor distinguishing climate fiction from other genres. Put another way, the absence of long-term climate trends would render an otherwise well-constructed story meaningless or confusing. It's important to remember the difference between weather and climate. Weather happens over a short period of time. Climate happens over a long period of time, e.g., decades or centuries. Stories that depend on a specific weather event, such as a tornado or hurricane, don't qualify as climate fiction, unless the narrative makes clear that the weather event is closely tied to long-term climate change. For example, the story of Noah's Ark is not climate fiction, because the Biblical Flood was a single, one-time, divinely caused disaster, not the result of long-term climate trends.

2. Understanding climate change within the story depends on science. Climate fiction is rooted in science fiction; some think of clifi as a sub-genre of scifi. As such, climate fiction works best when the change driving the narrative is based on established science, or at least speculation that stems from science. A writer could base a climate fiction novel or short on the scientific consensus, or on a minority viewpoint. But facts derived via the scientific method are key. A story that posits an impossible effect of climate change is not climate fiction. For example, the 2013 schlock motion picture linked a weather event spawning flying sharks to climate change. This is patently impossible, and therefore Sharknado is not climate fiction.

3. Climate fiction happens on earth, mostly. From a scientific perspective, climate happens on any celestial body with an atmosphere. The planet Mars has a climate, as does Venus. Many scientists view Venus' climate as a model for runaway greenhouse effects. And theoretically, a writer could set a climate fiction story on a distant world facing a climate disaster, or in the case of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, an upgrade. But a hallmark of most clifi stories is the exploration of the potential impact of climate change on 21st-century human societies, and we only know of one: on Earth. Unless the writer NEEDS to place her climate change story on a non-earth world, it's probably best to make Terra the setting.

4. Writers do not have to label work as climate fiction for it to qualify as such. The term " climate fiction" goes back to 2008, when activist and public relations man Dan Bloom first suggested it as a way to classify certain climate-based stories. Several dozen books and movies (no plays or poetry that I know of) have received the label. Of course, writers working before 2008 would not have used the term. (One of the earliest identified climate fiction novels, The Drowned World, was published in 1962.) At present, the term is not widely accepted in the literary community, so writers probably shouldn't use it when pitching new work to agents or publishers. Maybe someday...

5. Keep your political views on climate change to yourself. The history of literature is filled with authors who change public policy with exceptionally crafted fiction. Charles Dickens highlighted the poverty of mid-19th century London in Oliver Twist and other novels. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle exposed conditions in early 20th-century meat-packing plants. But most authors avoid this approach, because it's very difficult to do so without appearing preachy or dogmatic. In the case of climate fiction, a writer may create a character who discovers that climate science is a hoax. The trick is to convince readers that perpetrating the hoax is plausible without coming across as a thoughtless denier. Good luck with that.

6. Like all other fiction, climate fiction has no rules. Experienced writers will tell you that fiction has no rules for success, though various guidelines or best practices are useful. Climate fiction is no different. For example, 95 percent or more of climate fiction is dystopian. Clifi usually assumes that climate change is detrimental to human societies, often wiping out civilization as we know it. However, at least one recent climate fiction novel, The World We Made, presents a utopian view of human reaction to climate change. In this book's future, societies thrive and the environment is saved. In other words, fiction rules are made to be broken. If you break the rules, be smart about it.

Video: Six Rules for Writing Climate Fiction, Part 1

Six Rules for Writing Climate Fiction, Part 2

What do you think? Any other rules for climate fiction?

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Six rules for putting climate change into your fiction

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Writers, especially new writers, are on the lookout for rules that will guarantee, or at least enhance the potential for success in the artistic or commercial marketplace. If you're interested in writing in the new genre of "climate fiction," here's a few boundaries that will help you understand your role as climate storyteller.

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Imagine 2200: The 2022 climate fiction collection

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Imagine 2200: The 2022 climate fiction collection

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Imagine 2200: The 2022 climate fiction collection

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Fix’s annual short story contest celebrates visions of generational healing and community-based climate solutions.