The E Utopia Project Read Online Free Page B

of parts of the Earth. When she was tired
of looking at the satellite images, she maximized the Word document that was
supposed to contain her UN speech. She looked at the heading Extraterrestrial
Factors. The heading looked back at her. She knew her assistants could
write a politically correct speech for her, but this wasn’t the time for
politicking. It was time for action. Her speech had to contain practical advice
for world leaders. She switched off her laptop with a sigh of surrender and
hauled herself to her feet.
    She put on her breathing
machine, fitted her dog with its breathing machine and led the animal to the
porch. Cuddling the dog, she crawled on the floor, looking at the moon and the
stars. When she was a little girl, she used to think that God lived on the moon
and when she looked at the moon, she thought she saw a monochrome image of God
sitting on His throne. The moon and the stars looked exactly the same as they
did when she was a little girl. They appeared indifferent to the disaster that
was facing the Earth and its inhabitants. Sara wondered whether the moon was
also experiencing temperature changes. She watched the stars till she fell
asleep.
    She woke up in the middle of
the night, shivering. Snoopy was curled up close to her. Temperatures plummeted
during the night. It seemed as if the cold nights and the hot days belonged to two
different seasons.
    Rubbing her goose-pimpled
arms, she led the dog back into the house and took off their breathing
machines. The dog curled up in his basket and she went to bed.
    Sleep recaptured Sara when
she began to feel warm.
    She woke up to the chime of
the alarm and mechanically went about her toilette. After feeding her dog, she had
a cup of tea with leftovers from dinner. She savored her tea, knowing that tea
would soon be a thing of the past. The UN, following recommendations from the
Food and Agriculture Organization, had passed a resolution encouraging member
states to ban the cultivation of non-food crops like tobacco and food crops
with little nutritional value like tea and coffee. The world was facing a
severe food crisis and people couldn’t afford to waste resources growing crops
that only satisfied tastes.
    After putting on a white pair
of trousers and a white T-shirt, she took Snoopy outside and fitted him with his
breathing machine.
    “Bye, Snoopy,” she said with
a wave of her left hand.
    She walked for ten meters
before she put on her breathing machine. She had only walked for four hundred
meters when she came across two policemen. Both cops had nasal cannulas.
    “Ma’am, can you please take
off your breather?” one of the patrolmen asked.
    Sara took off her breathing
machine and the policemen looked at her face and compared it to the pictures on
the front and back of her T-shirt. The police made random roadblocks, arresting
those without ID pictures on their clothes and fining those whose ID pictures
were smaller than life-size.
    “Oh my God,” one of the
officers said, his face breaking into a grin. “My wife won’t believe this! It’s
you, Doctor Sara Cummings, the Director of GEMA! It’s a pleasure to meet you,
ma’am. Sorry for stopping you. This is just a routine check. You should use
cannulas to avoid the inconvenience of being stopped by cops.”
    “Cannulas make me feel
uncomfortable,” she said with a shudder. She had tried nasal cannulas and they
had made her nose bleed.
    “Miss Cummings!” the other
officer shrieked like a groupie.  “Thank you for everything that you’re doing
to save the world.”
    “We’re all trying to save the
world, sir,” Sara said, feeling the burden of responsibility increasing on her
shoulders. These two cops, like millions of people around the world, had faith
in her but she didn’t have the slightest idea how the world could be saved from
El Monstruo.
    She put on her breathing
machine and left the mesmerized cops. The machine did not only provide her with
oxygen but also covered her face