Page 1 of The Lottery

1

ZAE

“Every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable.”

—John F. Kennedy, American President

* * *

That which I have fought against my entire life has finally happened: the world as we know it is ending.

Standing at the edge of a narrow metal bridge, tornadoes made of fire and dust licking the support beams below, Earth’s final chapter looks as dramatic as it feels. Hellscape doesn’t even begin to describe the planet we’ve created.

Like so many catastrophic things, it happened slowly and then all at once. Year after year of gradual change while people like me sounded every alarm we could find, and then it was too late. I sacrificed everything, and nothing I did made a damn bit of difference.

By the time other people started making an effort, it was too little too late. We should have done more in the decades before when it became clear what was happening. When fires and floods, heat waves and plunging temperatures began to threaten the lives of so many.

We didn’t. Humanity failed Earth and now she is kicking us out. I don’t blame her one bit. Maybe once all the humans are gone, she can heal.

Now, while some people fight to survive in drowned cities and scorched mountains, I’m about 100 feet away from the entrance to an enormous spacecraft that’s going to take me away. I’m one of the lucky ones, people tell me. I remind myself of that daily, though I don’t really buy it.

I didn’t want to enter The Lottery. Didn’t want to abandon the planet I love so much. Definitely didn’t want to be paired with a random billionaire for the purpose of popping out babies. But my grandmother, bless her dear soul, wanted me to live. So she took it upon herself to make sure I did.

And I was chosen. One of the few single, smart, and fertile humans who will be part of the last and only ship left with any chance of getting off this dying rock. We are heading to a newly terraformed Mars to rebuild humanity one billionaire at a time. Well, one billionaire at a time, plus the rest of us.

I’m lucky because I won a lottery. The crew were chosen for skill. The billionaires didn’t need luck or skill because they had already bought their way to safety. It’s the damn billionaires who set this up, paying for the ships and the studies and the exploration and whatever else they chose to do instead of ever lifting a finger to save the world we already had.

The very people who destroyed this planet are the ones who get to escape it. And I’m going with them. Not only that, but I’m partnered with one of them. That’s the deal. Given how many ships over the years have failed to reach orbit, exploding into a fiery rainstorm, and given the collapse of global governments and the general lack of planning at a spectacular level, only those who have the necessary skills and fertility were invited to enter The Lottery. My skills will help regrow the world. My womb will help us fill that world with people.

I push away the anger and sadness that threatens to consume me as I hold the lumpy bundle in my arms more tightly to my chest.

A cut from the cherry tree that grew in my grandmother's yard, planted when she was a child herself. The tree where her ashes were spread upon her death. Matilda Clark’s final resting place. I spent countless hours of my life under that tree, daydreaming, crying over a broken heart, journaling and sketching.

I am determined to make it grow on another planet. To raise my children under its white buds that burst with red when the seasons change. To taste the tart explosion of cherries when they bloom.

Of course, my job is to grow far more than a single cherry tree. I’m one of a handful of botanists in charge of making sure an assortment of cuttings and seeds from around the world can survive and thrive in our new home.

But this one is mine. My personal legacy from the world I’m leaving to burn.

I move slowly down the metal runway, careful not to touch my arms against the hot rails. It’s been a while since I’ve been outside. Since I’ve felt the scorching heat on my skin and tasted the ashen air.

Between back-to-back pandemics and countless global disasters over the last ten years, very few people have had the time or means to leave their homes. Most days, in most parts of the world, just stepping outside at all is too high a risk. And those without homes, well, they paid the highest price.

Now very few people are left.

Which is why I am so grateful to be here even as it shakes me to my core to know we are leaving those few stranded. It’s a death sentence as surely as if I pulled the trigger myself.

I take a deep breath and speed up my walk across the bridge, feeling the heat of the metal through the soles of my boots. I’m one of the stragglers, maybe the last to board given how long my final health evaluation took. Something about an anomaly in my blood they had to double check. But I was eventually cleared for takeoff.

So here I am. Backpack strapped on, holding what remains of my worldly belongings, my little cherry tree cutting clinging to life in my arms. My gut churning with dread at what will be asked of me on this journey.

And a last goodbye to everything I’ve ever known.

I get my final up-close glimpse of this world as I near the center of the bridge and take in the horizon. There’s nothing much to see. Not anymore. Too many fires. Too many floods. Too much has been lost. The land looks desolate. Like an inhospitable planet that life could not possibly survive on.

Everything is fire, smoke, and dust. Hot air clouded with toxic particulates burns my lungs. Stings my eyes.

Sweat beads on my forehead and pools between my breasts as gusts of blistering hot wind whip loose strands of my long dark hair into my face.

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