Holding Out
By Joshua Johnston


Perry, Maine
Free States of New England
April 16th, 2692

They asked me to leave again today. I told them to go to hell. Despite my full knowledge of the facts, I'm going to stay. There have been Rowes here for eight hundred years, on this very same plot of land. And I'll be damned if we give up our life on this land, this Earth, without a fight. 

I was sitting in the living room, watching the latest rounds in the hockey tournaments on Europa when they knocked on the door. When the last rains fell, something shorted in the household system so I couldn't screen my visitors. I stopped caring though. When the Kavanaghs moved away in '687, there didn't seem to be much reason to expect guests, not when the nearest occupied plot of land was a hundred miles or more out. When I got up to answer the door, there they were again, standing in the makeshift airlock my daughter made me build before she got on the ship.

The two men wore those bright orange suits they'd begun issuing back in the 80's. Shocking. Glaring. That damn yellow stripe running all up the sides, like a mutated bumblebee. I could see the badges stuck on their chests. Bureau of Evacuation.

"Mister Rowe?" the first had started. "We're from the Evacuation Bureau. We were asked by your daughter to fly you to Bangor for the next available seats. Have you contacted her, are you packed?"

"You know goddamn well I'm not packing!" I replied, mustering up as much indignation as I could, holding the door open just a crack. "If I changed my damn mind, I'd be flying my own damn self!" 

In comparison to the man who spoke first, the second was definitely appearing to be the one in charge. He was taller, wider, and older. Not nearly on par with myself, his age was only beginning to be noticeable. His hair was still naturally dark, but the slightest amount of sag to his cheeks had begun to set in. 

"Sir," started the second, "We can't guarantee your safety anymore. The weather's beginning to get into the red zone down in Florida, and we think it's going to be just as bad here in the fall. There have been some exposure fatalities in Miami, and some pretty bad mutations along the fringes of Raleigh-Durham…"

"I watch the news, boy. I've seen what goes on. I just tell you I don't care." I said, folding my arms across my chest. Not for the first time, I noticed just how bony they were, elbows jutting out like chicken's wings.

For some reason the look of my elbows bothered me, so I just shut the door and left it. They knocked again, but after five minutes they gave up. Good.

April 30th, 2692
I took stock of my supplies today. Flew the Aircruiser down to Boston and stocked up at a Warehouse Mart that was having a closeout giveaway. Not a lot of regular folks showed up, just a few hundred old geezers just like me. Seems like everyone under the age of a hundred and fifty decided to get on a ship, despite what the polls were saying at the beginning of Evacuation. These final holdouts seemed to have something holding them here, but I seriously doubted that any of them were planning on remaining as long as I did. 

Despite my best instincts, I watched them for a time. They greeted each other like long-lost friends, and I suspect maybe a few of them were. However, the majority seemed to be greeting absolutely everyone who came near, which is why I stayed as far distant as I could. Though they seemed to be friendly, I could almost sense the truth behind their congregation. They were enjoying the last gasp of social living on Earth, spending one last shopping trip to pick the bones of humanity's first home clean. I heard a few chatting pleasantly about the schedule for their flights to one of the colonies. For all the camaraderie they shared, there was a common thread. None of them were truly staying.

Warehouse Mart had gone and consolidated the stock from every location on the east coast, right into one giant lot just before the corporate shutdown. Good stuff, and plenty of it. I guess there's just not a lot of point anymore. The census of '690 had nearly a million and a half people in the Free States, but eighty percent of those had seats on a ship. You'd think two hundred thousand people would seem like a lot, but in cities and towns meant for multimillions, it just doesn't feel the same. But I was there to pick the bones clean, as it were, just like the rest.

I left Warehouse Mart with my Aircruiser so heavy the blasted thing had a hard time leaving the ground. Once the main thrusters sparked off, it was easy to fly home.

May 10th, 2692
Boston went off the grid today. The last of the fusion plants was taken offline to be moved off planet to one of the new colonies. Maybe the domes on Venus or Europa needed it. They'd been talking on the news about where certain items were going, but I wasn't paying much attention. Ever since '665 when they first announced the Evacuation, I knew they'd loot this old world for everything they could when they left. Damn corporations. Damn governments. That's what got us into this mess, taking everything we could get. The ozone struggled for centuries; unaware of promises it would always get better. Men said a lot about things getting better. Mother Nature wasn't listening very well, I suppose. 

May 29th, 2692
They finally declared the Carolinas a red zone today. One big surge of pollutants came up, before the government could even get the word out. Killed six thousand people last night. Stuff ate right through the houses down there. Old things, mostly Greenitecture prefabs using pressed wood and vegetable leftovers. When you get acid rain so strong it leaves permanent scars on flesh, you don't want to live in a house made out of salad. I don't expect it to be much longer before I get another knock at the door.

June 12th, 2692
Those bastards from Evacuation haven't come back yet. But I think I heard them today. Something big, really dark and really large, was flying over the bay. I only saw it for a second, but I swear it had to be Bureau of Evacuation taking out a flight from Bangor. They used to fly a southern route, but ever since the red zone started getting closer to New Jersey, I think they're just going straight east to orbit without the Newark transfer my daughter said they used when she left in '684. 

I often think about my daughter, and wonder if she'd understand why I'm staying. She's in her forties now, a young woman with a long future ahead of her on Mars. She and her husband had just started a shop selling Earth flowers and fruits. It'll probably be a good business for the two of them, as a lot of those who left want such things. Since the uplink on my communications gear shorted out in November, I figured it was best just to leave her alone. She'll do fine on her own, no need to think about her mother and I.

June 26th, 2692
They finally came again, for the last time. This time I got their names. Mr. Dawson and Mr. Genevese. Dawson was the shorter one, who had been in front before, and was again.

"Mister Rowe, it's time. The last ship leaves tomorrow morning, and it can't wait any more. Boston's just been declared a red zone, and the storms have been accelerating. We're shutting everything down tomorrow when the ship leaves Bangor Interstellar."

But I'm still here. And tomorrow the last ship leaves.

July 5th, 2692
My supplies are holding up quite well, and I still have hundreds of days worth of supplies stacked in the cellar. All any old hermit after the end of the world could want, I suppose. Enough canned food and bagged protein to keep a man fit. But my time has run out, far faster than I thought it would. The wind outside is rushing, the acid in the rain starting to etch symbols in my windows. The last unnatural art of mother Earth. 

The weather's gotten so bad even the satellite fails to work, the clouds and rain blocking out the signal entirely, barely even allowing sunlight. I forgot one thing in my plans. Well, several things, but only one that truly matters when it comes down to the last. The solars I had running simply failed to generate anything yesterday, so I've been using the household generators. I figure I have enough for a month or more, burning the fuel cell from the Aircruiser, but it won't be enough to keep the satellite running even if the skies do clear up for a better signal.

But even as I write this, I wonder if electricity is really what I forgot. I think what my hundred and sixty-two year old mind forgot was far more important. The value of life. I mourn this planet, as I have mourned it since the day I graduated from the Free States University, a promising art student with a long career ahead of me. The same day the announcement came from Weather Control. "We're losing the Earth."

All the wonderful life on this planet, all the beauty, all the varied colors and creatures had inspired me. From the turning of the maple leaves in fall, to the crystal clarity of the air on a cold winter day, I had seen infinite beauty on this fragile blue-green world. I would sit outdoors with my easel, practicing my anachronistic craft, listening to the sounds of seagulls, crows, and the northern songbirds. And I think even at that young, tender age of twenty-two, I had decided I could never, ever, leave this Earth. But it was far in the back of my mind until last year, when I couldn't deny the imminence of Evacuation anymore.

"Jim? We need to leave. We need to be with our little girl."

My wife's words chilled me to the bone. The rage that built up inside me, the hurt, the anger, was immense. The loathing for humanity, hating everything we were for destroying the Earth, so lovely as it had been in the few days of my youth, before the projections of red zones, yellow zones, and green zones. I made certain that my wife and I would never leave this place that night.

And now, as the acid rain falls, and the pain in my heart is the greatest, I find that I need to join her. I'm going to step outside now, without my bright orange suit, without my thick acid-resistant helmet, and without any of the air filter packs stuffed in the airlock recess. I will step calmly across the fallen bodies of two men who probably meant only to save me, but could not sway me from my final human duty. I'm will walk to the stand of trees at the end of the drive, and sit with my wife, in the bed of wilted flowers where I laid her to rest this past December. My last thoughts, I expect, will be of the wonders humanity has denied itself, and how glad I feel, that I was able to spare my loving Cyndi from seeing the full scope of Earth's final darkness.

Journals of "Kenneth Rowe"
Discovered in remains of residential building.
N45.02.219 W67.05.839
Earth Reclamation Authority
Office of Casualty Accounting
Old Boston, North America
July 16th, 3201

