Once upon a time

     My grandfather is a storyteller. For as long as I could remember, Grandpa has been putting me to bed with his magical tales of faraway countries where princesses sing and puffy clouds drift over the castle turrets. I drifted off with them. Never in my life have I ever seen a princess. Nor have I ever seen a real live castle. I always used to ask him how he came up with wonders like these. But he would smile sadly, shake his head, and inform me that in a man's long life, of course, he could have seen many things. I've never known if his stories are even partly true. But in this dark and lonely life, any story would do.

     Every day, I woke up to the same darkness that engulfs me when I am asleep. Sometimes I have trouble telling apart reality from a dream. But then I would hear Grandpa's familiar jolly voice pulling me from my dreams. Other than Grandpa, I know exactly 27 people in my life. I supposed once, there were more, including my mum and dad. But they were here no more.

     

     We live a quiet life, in our dim, underground caves cut in the mountains, traveling through tunnels to our food farm, only ever leaving when the sky outside out potholes turn red, returning before the stars appear. The Sun is our enemy. The stars are our foe. We have long been taught they signify the two things that could easily kill us most—the heat and the cold.

     Each morning I washed up at our well and went to water the few fruit-bearing plants at the entrance of our cave. They lived under a large clear dome, where sunlight reached them but the heat could not. Then I quickly retreated back into the cave. I was taught not to stay out in the harmful sunlight for too long. Then, all day long I helped Grandpa make bread, tend to the 'farm' animals, teach the few other small children in next door caves, or weave fur clothing or. It was enough for us to stay warm, but not enough to protect us from the fluctuating climate of the outside world.

     That evening when the sun descended the sky, I crawled out onto the ledge outside the cave and gazed over the inky black sea surrounding our home. Perhaps Grandpa's castle lay far away over the water on some other island nearby. But it was obvious there was no way of getting to them.

     I had a lonely, isolated life. Times were hard but we always got through them. Never had I thought on our own little island much, much worse was waiting around the corner. It started the day I went to the well as usual. The bucket clanged against the sides as it went down—and struck the bottom with a thud. For a moment I subconsciously continued lowering the rope. Then I stopped in shock and ran to get Grandpa.



     The next few days were rife with chaos. All around people were in panic as they soon realized their wells were running out of water, too. To make things worse, the sky lit up with the promise of another ferocious summer and finding a new water source immediately became everyone's priority.


     
     Grandpa, as the oldest and most experienced of the people became their natural leader and he led young men out on excavations of water sources underground every evening at twilight. However, though all efforts were put into this mission, there was no water to be found except in small cacti atop the mountains rising out over the undrinkable sea water.

     I saw a side of Grandpa I had never seen before. He had always been like a cheerful boy trapped in an old man's body—wrinkles never seemed to exist on his face until the day the well ran dry. Now they came creeping up like the sun chasing shadows over the trees. That was when I knew things were a lot worse than they looked.

     I took it into my own hands to help him no matter how much he refused. Early sunset the next day we trotted over the dry hills that formed our island and scanned the barren land with our dowsers. We'd gone quite far when the dark sky rumbled overhead and the wind started blowing scalding cold in our direction. It was one of those vital dry storms we were always experiencing. The men started yelling at us to hurry back but Grandpa stayed where he was. He was standing stock still, his eyes fixed on the slowly turning stick in his hand.

     It didn't take me long to realize he had found the underground water source we had been looking for so long. But it was also too late to reach him as the sudden gust of wind pushed us off our feet and we were sent tumbling down to hill side in a whirl of dust and sand.

     Grandpa saved our lives that day when he found the water. But after that day he never moved again.
"Grandpa!" I screamed. I scrambled over the dry, hard rocks over to him, my bare hands scratched and bleeding, slipping in my dirty, tattered shoes, my heart hammering inside my chest. I fell down on my hands and knees next to his motionless body. He spoke to me weakly, but with determination as if his life depended on it.

     "My dear child…I have yet to tell you a story I should have told you a long, long ago…"
And it was this day that Grandpa told me a story unlike any he'd ever told me before. Shadows of a distant memory flickered in his once dancing eyes as he spoke.

     "Once upon a time, our home was more green than blue. You could walk for miles and never reach the sea. There were houses. There were fields and flowers. You could walk in the sunlight without fear of being burnt. You could lie back to watch the stars without fear of being frozen.

     There were more than enough people to know. People lived in luxury—and oh, the luxury they lived in. In airplanes, you could fly. In cars, you could travel without even dropping sweat." Grandpa smiled bleakly. "If you could have seen a computer! An amazing invention there ever was. If only we had known what all this luxury would do to us, we would have gladly given up all our needs.

     But that was the way humans were. And luxury doesn't come without a price. That is just what happened, not long before you were born. The crash of water…the overwhelming rebellion of the world taking out on us all at once…sometimes I wish we had never survived.

Your parents died not long ago, fighting back. Now, it's just us. And soon, there might not even be us."

Grandpa's eyelids fluttered closed. "Once upon a time, the world was beautiful…"

I have always thought I was born lonely. Never had I actually ever felt this lonely before. No matter how much time may pass, it was always still coming back to get at me, bit by bit. This is what global warming has done to me.