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would she do that? Is this it? Are
you saying that we’re going through an — ?”
    “ Apocalypse ? Yes, I guess I
am. But I don’t know why you’d want to call it that. The world isn’t ending;
it’s getting better,” she says.
    “ Right , better,” I scoff.
“That’s why I’ve been in tears all day.”
    “You know what I mean. It will get better,” she proceeds calmly. “This is the next generation of Earth. First
there were the dinosaurs, then the Stone Age, then the people age, and now it’s
evolving into something different entirely. Something without so much waste,
where the earth can flourish as it was meant to.”
    I snicker. Deb really is crazy.
She acts like she has it all figured out.
    “So, why the hell are we here then?” I ask, incredulous.
    “You know, I’m not sure. But
there’s something special about us, I suppose. I’ve always been ‘eco,’ even
before that word existed. I think she knew I was on her side and would remain
on her side, no matter what happened. I was always doing my part to protect her
and everything she gave us: the water, air, all the gifts of the earth. My
guess is you have, too, in your own way. Honest to Pete—I know it seems
terrible now, but in many ways, this is a gift! Mother Earth is giving us a
chance to help her get this planet back on the right track, before it’s too late
for all of us.”
    I shake my head. This lady’s a nut
job. I want to tell her to put down the peyote and step away from the pipe.
    “This morning I went out walking
to find survivors, but you’re the only thing on two legs I’ve seen, besides the
birds,” Deb says. “Listen, Jackie. You notice anything strange about what’s
happened?”
    Are you fucking kidding me? “What? All of it.”
    “Everything modern and full of bad
chemicals dissolved in the fire. I’ve been thinking about this all morning, and
what’s interesting—and what makes me know in my bones it’s the great
Mother Earth doing all this—is that there are a lot of things that aren’t
burnt. Natural things, things you maybe made yourself. Things that wouldn’t
harm the planet.”
    I don’t know if I can believe her,
but she sounds so sure in her convictions that she might as well be a preacher.
I think back to my plastic tent and my chemically made sunglasses. And then I
look down at my perfectly new-looking cotton shirt. Huh.
    “Yes, there’s a rhyme or reason to
it all, I suspect,” she says softly.
    “If what you think is true — and that’s a big
‘if’ — why
is she doing it? I just don’t get why she’d burn her creations to shreds.”
    Deb gasps. “Listen, kiddo,” she
says, her hands on her hips. “It wasn’t her creations she burned up.
Aren’t you hearing me? It was all the junk we made, all the useless crap
we were ruining the globe with.”
    “She killed people,” I say
angrily. “People who had every right to live.”
    “Yes, maybe they did. But maybe
those same people were eating and buying and shitting their way through life,
not doing a damn thing for anybody or anything. I mean, the whole world was
getting so screwed up, so unjust. Some folks were living high on the hog while
others couldn’t even eat, and we were sabotaging the whole earth and everything
on it with our business . You ask me, the whole globe was becoming one
big giant ball of inequity.”
    Holy crap. I can’t believe she’s
talking this way. People are dead and she doesn’t seem to care. She’s friggin’
nuts, and what’s more, I wasone of those people. I am one of
those people. I love Camp Astor. And sure, I recycle. I even pick up trash when
we go to the beach. But I’m not some hippy-dippy, green living pioneer the way
Deb seems to be. If Deb is right about all this, then why am I still here while
my best friends are smoldering where they slept?
    If what she’s suggesting is true,
people and things could be burnt up all over America. My mom . Bernard. I
start to feel my heart quaking in my