Earthfall

[h1]What Makes a Home? — Electric Threads[/h1] When did Earth fall? And yet another question whispered beneath it: what meaning does the Earth we call home have now? I remember the time my sister and I arrived — if memory serves me — at the dam, once cloaked in trees. There, strange plants glowed in the darkness, spreading across the hillside and devouring the vegetation that had once belonged to that place. It had been transformed, irrevocably. Can we still call somewhere home when it has changed beyond recognition — when that transformation has given rise to creatures that do not belong to us, and to an air we can no longer breathe, as the living things that once flourished there have been extinguished? We wander through the abandoned streets, and there is no one. Perhaps a few people remain, the last witnesses to the alien invasion. Some help; others flee. And then there we are — those who have become the final vestige moving along the paths that wind through these forests. I remember arriving with my sister at a neighbourhood. The rain is cool, and the wind whistles through the forest. Everything feels familiar, as though we have walked these paths time and time again. And yet, something has changed. There are no people, and gradually the land — Oregon's forests — begins to lose its familiar shape. It blurs, and with it, the memories of those who once lived there begin to fade. The scent of wet earth is strangely comforting. Mist rises through the winding paths, while the restless murmur of the water seems to whisper that everything is slowly vanishing. Could it be that we, too, begin to vanish when this earth — our earthly condition — can no longer allow us even to survive, let alone to fulfil ourselves alongside the few of us who remain? We run. We leap. We climb. My sister watches over me. And so we make our way through the darkness that shelters both nature and the research facilities. Our lamp begins to glow, and we realise that those creatures — the Whiplash — have infested this place. They are its new occupants. They move at the urging of our energy, drawn towards our electricity. And yet, although they cannot see, although they move only by instinct, our presence is different from theirs. We have a purpose that binds us to others: covering each other’s backs, looking after one another when we believe there is no one left. Even if the Earth has been transformed, something remains. We are still beings who tread upon this ground. Passing beings, perhaps — but human beings nonetheless, willing to carry on and to care for one another. We are survivors. In hunger, in the midst of this invasion, we have ceased to be indifferent to one another. This is Maya; that is Dani. Could there be any greater proof that we can care for one another? And even though this world seems so different now, can we not still call ourselves family? We rest upon these green wastelands. The cool earth wraps itself around us like a blanket, granting us a moment’s respite after the countless swarms that surround us, urging us to separate. To flee. To give up. To set care aside and abandon one another. But not us. Not those of us who can still feel the shelter of this world through the forests that enfold us. Even though the bond may appear to be nothing more than a line of electricity passing from one body to another, what truly touches us — what cannot be broken — is care. Just as it is between my sister and me. That is our own electricity. Griggs’s words still echo within us: “It seems this isn’t our planet anymore.” And yet, what is it, beyond the place where we live, that we call home? Is it because everything that lives and breathes here becomes part of what we call home? The plants. The animals. The earth itself. Why, then, does Griggs no longer recognise this world, this land? As we move onwards, nightfall — or the fading light of dusk — gathers around us like the quiet gesture of a presence. And when that presence begins to disappear, it is then that it commands our attention, warning us that danger is near. It is like losing someone and only then becoming aware of their absence, when before their presence seemed to matter so little. So it is with our world, with our earth. Everything that lives here, everything that takes shape and enters into relationship — like threads woven into a garment that enfolds and protects us — is connected. It is familiar to us. We inhabit this world alongside it. But Griggs no longer recognises it. Perhaps not because of the bioluminescence of the landscape, nor because the air has become difficult to breathe. Perhaps it is because something has torn the fabric that once bound us to this place. And now my sister and I will mend it. We will stitch and darn the cloth we call home, the fabric the aliens have tried to tear apart. If that relationship — those electric threads that bind us together and give us ground upon which to build our home — is severed, they may devour us, enclosing us within the pustules that seek to consume our world. My sister and I stop. We rest for a while: a breath in which to feel the night, the winter, the dawn. To feel its cold or its warmth seep into us, to feel its light passing through our eyes, leaving behind a gentle, warm tingle. We carry on. We know what we must do. Home is formed where the earth and the world meet, woven together into a single fabric. And the moment we become aware of what we are losing — even if there is no alien invasion to blame — we will understand that, as this place transforms, it may cease to be our home. That is what Griggs feared. Not the planet itself, but the home we had built upon it.