Back to the Future !!

It was quite a calm day. I was seated on the sofa, surfing television channels. Suddenly, my eyes caught the news telecast of a tornado which was just a few miles away from the place where I live. I informed my parents about it and rushed to shift our household goods to a safer place. Soon, I heard a thundering sound nearby. I got frightened and tried to run away, but it was too late. The tornado had reached our home. The wind blew me off and I was in the air for a few seconds.

I fell to the ground with a thud and saw several bruises on my body. I surveyed the surroundings for some time but the place did not look familiar to me. I walked around in search of people. But I saw no one. I walked a little more and I was shocked to see the environment there. No trees, no humans, no animals, nothing. There was no sign of life at all.

After a long walk, I met an old man sitting on a rock. “Who are you? Why have you come here? Just get away,” he said to me. I asked him about the place where I stood. He said, “This is Atlantis, a place where the prisoners are kept as punishment. I have been here for the last three weeks.” I asked the old man what date it was and where the other people were. “It is now 2075. All the people whose ancestors were from Earth now live in Mars, there is normal life in Mars, full of greenery and also, many new species of animals have evolved there. Now no one can live on Earth permanently – due to the increasing temperature, lack of oxygen, increasing population, etc. In one way, we can say that these are the effects of deforestation and global warming. Now the humans are making new inventions, along with the robots, but they are also spoiling both the planets.” On hearing this, I was shellshocked. I realised that deforestation was the main reason behind this. I asked the person if there was any sea or ocean nearby. He said that the Pacific Sea was nearby. I told him that the Pacific was not a sea, it was an ocean. He told me that the Pacific was not an ocean anymore; its water had receded alarmingly and had turned it into a sea.

During this long conversation, I had forgotten to ask him about my home or how I had landed there. He said, “You may have come here through the ‘Future Hole’, which was there in the past. This is the way to come to the future world. To go back, you just need to go to the place where you placed your first step into Future Earth. There, you have to look for a dark funnel to jump into. That will take you home.” I thanked him and followed my path. Soon, I found the spot and I jumped into the funnel and reached home.

I saw my parents frantically looking for me. I ran towards them and hugged them. I didn’t tell them anything about my journey into the Future Earth. But this journey taught me a great lesson about the importance of the natural environment in our daily life.