Lethe was having the house raised again for the second time this year. In past years, the houses have not been raised more than once every 2 years, but now the sea level is so high that if one did not raise their house every few months, it would be flooded with water. I live with my sister, Lethe, in Waterway, Massachusetts, formerly known as Boston, well, until “The Great Meltdown,” in 2072.   If you are unfamiliar with “The Great Meltdown,” I will inform you. I, Triton Riley, have little recollection of a world without water. I was born a few months before “The Great Meltdown,” and even my sister, who is seven years my senior, vaguely remembers the “Land Years.” My parents were swept away while trying to get my sister and I to safety, which led to my sister and I being raised by my Grandmother. My Grandmother would tell stories of “The Land Years,” in which cars drove on the ground, now extinct animals walked the Earth, and trees grew from the soil in the ground. There is none of that now, there is only water. My childhood was one filled with learning how to row a boat instead of learning how to ride a bike. I liked living with my Grandmother, but I wish I had my parents. “The Great Meltdown,” took away my parents and for that I will never have positive feelings towards the water outside my door.   Once my sister turned eighteen, my Grandmother allowed us to move out into a house of our own, a house that is now currently being raised once again.
What happened during 2072 that changed all that, you may wonder? A permanent change in the Earth’s climate, or Global Warming as it is called, caused the Earth’s temperature to increase, melting the frozen continent of Antarctica. The result was astronomical. The world was flooded with water. Land was replaced with sea. Many lives, shelters, food supplies, and industries were destroyed. The entire world has become a large scale copy of the city of Venice.  Fifteen years later, many houses have been rebuilt, but need to be raised every so often, as the Earth’s temperature continues to rise, melting more and more ice as it goes. The car industry has become nonexistent, since there are no roads, there is no demand for cars anymore. I have never seen a car. I have only known water.
“What do you think, Triton, a few more inches?” asked Lethe. “Uh yeah sure, whatever you think is best,” I reply. Sometimes I wonder what will happen when we cannot raise the house anymore, but whenever I question it, my sister tells me that it won’t happen, to which I reply that that is what people who lived during “The Land Years” said about Global Warming. I have always wondered why the people of the Land Years ignored a very possible catastrophe that could have been easily avoided, but then I look around and see that the people in today’s world do the same thing, mindlessly raising their houses instead of trying to conserve what little of the world we have left.
I could feel the submarine crane slide under and gently bump the base of the house. My sister situated herself on the couch and turned on the TV. I walk to the front door and stand on the edge of the doorway, leaning between the comfort of my house and the vast unknownness of the water below. I feel the house slowly move beneath me as it makes its way towards the sky.  The sensation while it is moving is unnatural as gravity pushes down hard while the crane fights back and lifts up. The crane stops quickly, and the force of it throws me out of the house, into the vast unknownness. The water hits me like a cold slap to the face, and for a minute I am paralyzed in a shocked state. It takes me a few seconds to regain my thought process to realize what is happening. For a minute, I float motionless in the frigid water feeling so unattached and free. I feel a hand harshly grab my shirt collar and yank me from my small piece of freedom. My sister pulls me into the house and hugs me. My jet black hair stays flat to my head, the water keeping it in one place, and my olive skin has a minor tint of pink from the cold water. “I was so worried,” she says. I nod and she continues to hug me. She lets go to get me a towel, and I am left alone. I have lived on this edge of water all my life, but I have never make contact. The feeling of freedom was there yes, but there was something else. What was it? It took me all day to answer that question. The water felt unfamiliar and uncomfortable, like it was in the wrong place. It was, I reminded myself. I should not have to worry about falling out of my house into a deep pool of water. I should not have a high chance of drowning by just stepping out the front door of my house. I experienced a sensation of anger. How can people be so clueless? Why do we adapt to the changes caused by the water instead of actually trying to change the situation. Why did we harm the Earth to this extent, why didn’t we stop when we knew we were hurting the planet we are supposed to care for? My head began spinning. I was angry, confused, and frustrated at the situation we had put ourselves in. I brought this thought up to my sister at dinner. “It’s just the world we live in, Triton, there is nothing we can do about it now,” she said. “But why, why do we just refuse to do anything,” I asked, becoming annoyed. “We do do something,” she responded, “we raise our houses, we eat fish, we boat to get to places, we do whatever we need to do to survive. I know it isn’t fair that we lost Mom and Dad, but this is our life. We just have to accept it and move on.” I said nothing. I sat in silent anger for the rest of the dinner.
That night, I once again fell into the icy cold water, however this time, it was intentional. It was Autumn, and in just a few months the water would freeze over to many consistent layers of ice. I placed a waterproof flashlight onto my head and swam. I watched as fish swam all around me. I hoped to not encounter a shark as I pushed forward. I wouldn’t call it running away, more like getting away. I swam until I got tired, and pulled myself onto the front porch of a house I did not know. I sat for a while, dripping water, and thought. It was unusually darker than normal, and I could not see any further than two feet in front of me.  How can I do something to change this situation? I sat on the porch until daybreak. I thought of every possible thing I could do, but everything I had thought of could not reverse the effect that had already been done. I could not drain the world of the water, I knew that for sure. I could try to stop the process from going any further, but at this point the damage had already been done. The hole in the ozone was not going to get smaller, and the Earth was not going to get colder. No one would listen to the one teenager who wanted to stop an event that “won’t even occur in my lifetime,” until the time when it will, and in which it will be too late to stop. Defeated, I swam home. My sister was waiting for me when I returned. “I was so worried for you!” she yelled as I climbed onto the front porch. “I’m worried for you too,” I thought as I watched another house being raised, and emission from the boats float towards the sky.