DGW

Jake has been at the computer for centuries. He does not look a
day over thirty. Winters have come and gone, people have passed away.
Some have died, others passed their souls to another body. Jake seemed
to stop aging by age twenty-nine. He remembers snow, alright, that
soft, dust-like white substance which always brought terrible cold
weather with it. He also remembers when it disappeared. He remembers
the initial floods, the subsequent droughts. He even remembers when
people used the word "rainforest." No one but he recalls what that word
meant.
Jake sits and types. The view outside his window brings forth a
few tears. The mosquito-ridden puddles populating Old Downtown stink of
putrid melancholy. The old, abandoned buildings cough up an eternal
smoke. The river is finally a river. It flows with a vile mix of tar
and death. Jake remembers snow again. The first time he saw it, the
time he visited what used to be called New York during that strange
winter season. Then he saw it again, for decades, over the ancient city
of angels. People used to say it would disappear in the big earthquake
of '49, though of course they did not know it would happen in '49 then.
But the city, like Jake, was a survivor.
He wishes rain were still the way it was centuries ago.
The way precipitation was, as a norm, either liquid or frozen water.
Sometimes a condensed thing, a beautiful, sad thing called "dew." But
not ash, definitely not ash.
Jake believed those men everyone dismissed as nuts when they
talked about the warmth, no the Heat. Yes, he believed the stuff about
the Heat. Other people scoffed at the idea. Many of them died soon
after the first manifestations of GW. That is how it was known now, GW.
In the tradition of the four wars. People referred to the historical
floods and droughts as GWI and GWII. Jake thought it made light of the
situation.
 And then the Cold came from the Heat. Many people
died, murdered by the Cold because of the carelessness of others.
Jake sighs, he coughs, clapping his chest. He spits a viscid
green substance that is not exactly phlegm. He shuts down the
computer. He has finally finished his three-hundred-fifty page novel.
No one will read it. People do not read anymore. Those old structures
known as schools have disappeared; and what were once known as letters
have been replaced by stick-figure pictographs. All the computers in
the world have been destroyed; all but one.
Jake has not left his building for the past two-hundred years.
The last time he walked out his door was to meet his friend Owen after
one of the many snowstorms had caused a power outage in Owen's side of
town.
Jake looks out the window, eyes watery; he sees Owen at the
Japanese noodle house where instead of enjoying their steaming bowls of
ramen-miso soup, the friends lost each other forever. Jake cries; that
was the day Owen met his demise.
The DGW Corporation, an offshoot of the CIA/FBI/NSA conglomerate
known as CBSA, had him "whacked," as they put it. He was a believer in
the GW. They were deniers of it. He had called them on it several
times. He knew they were to blame. They were to blame for horrific
crimes against humanity. Owen made it public. They made sure his death
was kept a secret. As far as anyone but Jake knew, Owen had never
existed.
Jake packs a few antiques into his jacket pockets. CDs, things
once known as DVDs, he owns an ancient digital camera. He sells these
things underground, in what used to be the subway stations. Decent
people rarely visit such places. Those who buy Jake's wares are strange,
insane folk. They think they can rebuild the future by learning from
the past. Some of them still own some thing called a CD player. A few
own a television, something that Jake says was a valued commodity at one
point. But none own a computer. Some know Jake owns one, they can feel
it. No one dares ask him about it. His eyes betray a primal, animal
instinct to survive. They have heard he killed his own
best friend to make the CBSA think he was on their side.
Jake looks back at his antique IKEA desk before shutting the door
to his apartment. He fixes his beanie as he walks down the stairs. No
one here understands what the NY stitched on the front means. No one
remembers the ancient city as it once was, no one remembers the baseball
team or, for that matter, what baseball was. No one but Jake.
The wind outside scourges his lips and skin. He hates windburn
almost as much as he hates sunburn. He did not remember how much they
would both hurt, though. He looks back at what was once a great center
for sporting events, especially that thing called basketball. The
Stapling, Stapler, no Staples, Center it was called. It is now abandoned four
years. It had a hundred year stint as a refuge after the two-month
hurricane of '51, 3051 that is.
Jake passes rusted cars, abandoned buses, and ancient trains on
his way to the old Central Library. It has been closed for ages, but
Jake knows how to break in to read the ancient wisdom kept safe in its
books. He is reminded of those who mocked the notion of bicycles as an
alternate mode of transportation. Then they scoffed at the idea of
using horses again. Now walking is the only mode of transportation.
The air becomes heavy, Jake has trouble breathing. He reaches the
ancient mahogany door. It seems locked. He strikes the door with a
palm attack from his days as a fighter. It opens to allow him
in. The only tree he has seen in two hundred years greets him. It is a
giant peach tree he remembers upon seeing the blossoms and the fruit.
It is cold inside the library. No, not cold, just not as hot as
it is outside. Jake walks under the tree. Looking up he sees that it
has started to rain. Soon the rain turns to sleet, then to snow.
Tears well up in Jake's eyes. Then he smiles. He smiles at the sight
of the snow-covered peach tree.
Many years later when the useless library is about to be torn down
to make way for a new air/water purification facility Jake is still
standing under the now dead peach tree. His smile frozen in time.