Women smartly dressed for work dash by with a focus, with an intent.
You can tell that those that work the night shift at the hotels are taking their coffee break before they make their way home.
She decides to grab an espresso, a double. In line are two people, a female and a male. They are talking with passion about, umm, she can’t make it out exactly, but she dubs them Eco-Warriors and lowers her gaze. ‘What is happening to me’ she seems to say as her head darts around seeing her reflection in the glass and not escaping an answer.
You could call it primal. A primal pull with an unseen rope tugging a self confessed city girl out of the glitz. Where was she going? It was a mystery to her as she walked and sipped. Some people never change. Some people radically change, she had read the stories in Marie Claire.
To progress out of the sleek sophistication of her local haunts toward a timeless indefinable, well, it was not in her nature or so she thought.
Lately, pseudo-friends would remark as she would brush past yet still within ear shot,
‘How unlike a true cock-tail scene aficionado to miss big events with a wealth of cool-hunting Dark and Handsomes.’ Not so long ago her days were filled with texts concerning those specific Dark and Handsomes. Just a few moments ago she announced, ‘I am not answering calls right now or texts,’ was the only response she gave to her roommate. She then sat in front of some program once her hand finally put the remote down. Not so long ago she would have turned the sound down and continued texting, setting up the nights plans. She didn’t. She stared and listened. Some narrator was warning about the possibility of an Ice-Free Artic Summer by 2040. Another study predicts no summer ice in the Artic, but not until 2060. 2040-2060, well within her lifetime. ‘I AM FREAKING OUT.’
What she didn’t realize is that she was not freaking out as in going LOCO, having a break-down, or anything close to that. What she also didn’t realize is that there were other humans her age and older and even younger having a similar reaction watching that same report on climate change. The program droned on about extreme losses in sea ice in such a rapid frame of time. The program ended by flashing potential dates and the impact of the rapid meltdown on Artic Ice and the effect on our oceans. The final statement by the narrator, ‘The impacts on Artic Ice can still be minimized by society if we as a world can slow down the rate of greenhouse gases. But if greenhouse gases continue at their current rate then there is no avoiding a dramatic collision course with climate change…’
Sitting stunned on the couch she was in the throws of admitting to herself that an honorable pursuit in her very recent past would have been to deliver a friend, who in that moment would be on the verge of committing a social embarrassment. Her interest in this exclusive fancy was currently waning as the tug on her soul to get out was waxing.
