"Stop destroying our planet. It's where I keep all my stuff." – Unknown

Date: June 5th, 2017

Occasion: World Environment Day

Country: Worldwide

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XVI | Environmentally Unconscious

If you asked me how many better ways I could spend my Sunday apart from gardening, I could spout a list as long as my–

You know what? Never mind.

Let's just clarify the fact that the Earth and I were certainly not going to be exchanging friendship bracelets anytime soon. Sure, it was pretty damn worth saving, and not just because it's where I store all my crap. Yes, it was important to preserve the natural resources Mother Nature gave to us.

I also enjoy thinking of Mother Nature as a lovely woman, fluttering around with butterfly gossamer wings and humming a tune that could put a person high on coffee to sleep. But when you think of her as Gaia, a not-so-nice Dirt Face who could not be killed by toilet seats, my distaste for benefitting her only increased.

"You're not doing it right," commented Maddie, my girlfriend, as she disdainfully observed my abysmal weeding skills.

I myself glanced down at the weed I had been attempting to ease out for the past five minutes, though I had only succeeded in giving it a nice dirt shower. Also, another helpful hint is that you shouldn't take dirt showers unless you're a plant. It's not hygienic and you reek of Porta Potty for the next three days. Trust me, it's a true story I'd rather not relive.

"Sorry, Professor Expert! I didn't know there was a right way to weed these– stupid– weeds–" I grunted as my trowel dropped down with the force of my frustration, sending mud splattering in every direction, including Maddie's face.

"Usually," she spluttered in annoyance, smudging brown along her cheek as she attempted to get the dirt off. Naturally, she only managed to diffuse the damage and now looked as though she'd dunked his face into a Porta Potty. Another helpful hint – don't do that either. "You use your trowel to go under the weed, not smash it straight downwards and rearrange its chloroplasts!"

"You're reprimanding me? Whose two left feet made us run for our lives from an angry dude dressed as a kangaroo as he chucked Plushie koalas at us?" I shot back as the terrifying imagery returned with full force, though I hadn't registered much at the time except fake brown fur flying everywhere and the pounding of our synchronised footsteps.

Maddie's scowl almost made me regret bringing up the memory. Her nostrils flared, eyes flashing a dangerous green and narrowing into slits. "We're not bringing up Angry Kangaroo Man ever again, understand?"

"Fine," I agreed, but muttered under my breath, "prissy."

"What was that?"

"I said you look busy," I covered up smoothly, raising an eyebrow at her surprising ease of removing weeds. I had always told her that she seemed more like a man than a woman, at which she always ended up chucking the nearest object at my face, whether it was an apple, a lightbulb, or her cat. "Problem?"

Her eyes remained slivers of suspicion as she did the classic two finger motion. "I'm watching you, pretty boy."

"Did you just call me pretty?" I teased.

Although I turned my attention back to the stubborn weed that refused to unroot itself, I could just picture Maddie's face growing tomato red in that strangely adorable way. To my surprise, she kneeled down beside me without a word and began working furiously, while I did my best to conceal my admiration at how good she was at gardening.

It was so predictable, wasn't it? One of the only things I wasn't better than her at, was saving the Earth. Excluding being clumsy and irritating, which I was neither, of course. What was I saying? Oh yes, my girlfriend had this annoying knack of being super talented at standing up for things she cares about, and she certainly cares about this planet.

Me? Not so much.

What? I just wasn't brought up that way. My parents were these workaholics who made no time for sarcastic little Nathan, who only proved a nuisance to their lives. I was like a piece of roadkill on their highway to success. Nathan goes splat, parents run off with their fancy suitcases. Perfect, right?

The problem for them was, I constantly reappeared the moment they thought they had gotten rid of me for good. Also, my parents were all about cash and didn't give two flower crowns about saving the Earth. Unfortunately, I had also inherited that mindset from hanging around them my entire life. Sounds bad, eh? You have no idea.

Maddie glanced up after a few minutes, catching me silently observing her in that creepy Edward Cullen kind of way, which I was rather embarrassed about, because, well, Twilight. Her forehead creased as her eyebrows scrunched together, and I had to refrain from imagining them as kissing caterpillars. "What're you staring at?"

"Oh, you know. The nice view."

Even though I had meant something far more suggestive, I couldn't help but fulfill my lie and take a brief look at my surroundings, which I hadn't had time to do since I got to this planting reserve. Sunlight streamed through the atmosphere and highlighted the sheen of each leaf, while the sky-blue sky was very, er, blue. Wow, I'm totally author material. I should write a book.

Maddie puffed out a tired breath, brushing a piece of stray golden-brown hair from where it had dropped onto her cheek. The sun's solar power released its stunning light to shine about her smile, only brightening her white teeth. She'd always been the one with perfect teeth. Was I bitter that I used to have braces? Of course not. Where'd you get that idea?

"The Earth's so gorgeous," she breathed, breaking the silence. "I'm glad we came down here to plant some nice things for it. This planet's totally worth protecting."

"Yeah," came my thoughtful reply.

Like I said before, I usually wasn't the person to own a foam hand or a mug with The Earth is #1! inscribed on it, because that was just plain lame, but there was something about the display of budding flowers across the plain of land that touched my heart. Maybe this planet was worth protecting after all. Maybe my girlfriend was right for once.

"Hey, do you see that?" Maddie suddenly interrupted my deep thoughts.

"See what?" I queried before I even took a look, but immediately a mysterious figure caught my gaze. He or she stood far enough to blend into the shadows, but didn't get the memo that to blend in here, it was compulsory to dress up as a tree. "Oh, never mind."

"What do you think he's doing?" she asked, fear tinging her voice as the figure made its way towards our area of beautiful flowers. In Maddie's case, of course. The weeds didn't listen to my instructions. Another helpful hint is that weeds are disobedient.

Just to clarify, it wasn't like we were alone in a field by ourselves. That was a recipe for brutal murder and secretive kidnapping, and I wasn't about to let my girlfriend be dragged away by some big brute with a huge bat. That made me sound all heroic, didn't it? Let me rephrase that. Just because my girlfriend meant a lot to me, didn't mean that I actually had any strength or muscle tone to beat up some fools. That was said girlfriend's job.

Back to the point, there were crowds of people in the same gigantic field as us, most of them being Gaia fangirls who loved the environment and would kiss the ground for the rest of their lives if that wasn't regarded as gross, blah blah blah. Maddie and I didn't want to associate ourselves with bloodthirsty dirt minions, so we had isolated ourselves in a more secluded area with less people.

Oh, and more chances of being brutally murdered. Yeah, that too.

"I don't know, but he looks like he's either way too high on coffee or is having some kind of coffee withdrawal," I replied nonchalantly, forcing my tone to stay steady. The person's eyes were the first to emerge from the shadows, and made my spine involuntarily shiver. Their eyes had a crazed look to them, empty black holes which were drained of every emotion except a frenzied determination.

The creepy figure continued stalking towards us. Apparently, staying incognito wasn't on his to-do list, since he had absolutely no problem with revealing his face to us with a laser glare that could knock out a camel. It wasn't like it was a big deal though, because I didn't recognise the man.

He looked like a rejected entrepreneur who'd been forced to endure the Fields of Punishment for years, lips pressed so tightly I was surprised they hadn't moulded together. Attire dishevelled and uncared for. Thirsty for money. I knew that look. I'd been staring at it every day since I was born, and I got the feeling that I could've pounded him on the head and he wouldn't have reacted.

But my girlfriend beat me to it.

Once the mysterious businessman had reached our plot, he began ripping out every sign of life he could see from the ground, sending a record-breaking amount of dirt flying in every direction. Maddie shouted out in indignation, while I was frozen like a statue in complete shock.

"What the hell are you doing?" she screeched in indignation, spontaneously sprinting up to the man and seizing a hold of his wrist before I had a chance to react. She was annoyingly emotion and random like that. "Those are my flowers, you inconsiderate piece of dung!"

The man met her eyes for a fraction of a second, before he shook Maddie off and continued to shred her hard work. My limbs finally melted and I stumbled over to them, though anger wasn't exactly coursing through my veins. Like yeah, Maddie was my girlfriend and that was her effort, all gone, but the dude was ripping out my weeds as easily as if they were charger cords. I had to give the dude some credit.

Maddie then turned to me in desperation. "Nathan, do something! You're meant to be the knight in shining armour and all that crap, right? Well, freaking prove it!"

"Oh yeah, right." I had actually planned to grab some popcorn from a nearby stall and watch my work be done with zero effort on my part, but I suppose I had to please the missus. The man had filtered through half our plants at this point, so I marched up to him and poked him on the shoulder. "Hey, Earth-hater!"

I have trouble describing what happened next.

Instinctively, I balled my hand into a fist and sent it flying directly at his face. The problem was, humans have this thing called a reflex, and the man's was far too quick for me, probably because he was way too high on caffeine. He simply had to step to the side as the rest of my body followed through with the punch. I was sent stumbling forwards and damn near fell on my butt, since I had the turning abilities of a clumsy bull.

Wait, clumsy bull? Oh, I meant Maddie.

But I had to give the girl some credit, as she came charging past me with a heavy metal shovel, screaming something along the lines of, "ayeyeyeyeyeye!" Hefting it up, she slammed it onto the back of the man's head with as much force as she could muster, which sent him tottering forward a few steps before landing face first in the dirt.

With our luck, no one had noticed any of this happening. People were still chittering and chattering, seeds were still being planted, and no one noticed the ratty, unmoving man on the ground. Maddie moved next to me, and although I had grown way more respect for her in the past few minutes, my head didn't want to be the next one smashed in, so I did the smart thing and backed away as quickly as I could.

"Is he... alive?" she asked with surprising tentativeness. I stepped towards the man's body and grasped his limp wrist, feeling for a pulse. It came as a weak ba-boom, which meant I could feel the warmness of his blood pumping through his veins.

"Yeah, he's alive," I confirmed, backing up from the man in fear of him suddenly leaping up and ripping more weeds from the ground. "You know, you're kinda scary sometimes."

The right side of Maddie's mouth twitched upwards into a half-smile. "Your punch was pathetic. Thought you should know."

"Yeah, well, I'm glad you were here to save the day, Miss Knight in Shining Armour." I then examined the man and took out his wallet from my own pocket, checking out the contents.

Maddie stared at me with her mouth open. "Where did you get that?"

"You knock people out with shovels, I pickpocket," I replied calmly, tossing the wallet above my head and neatly catching it behind my back. "What? It's not like I'm going to steal his money or anything! Anyway, it says here that his name is Ryan Wiatrowsky, aged twenty-eight, and from the looks of his phone that I just hacked–" Maddie shot me a look, "–his company went bankrupt and I assume he's desperate for cash."

"Why would anyone try and destroy such beautiful things for their own benefit? Sure, the guy's cuckoo, but why trash the Earth when it provides them with something that's worth so much?" Maddie asked, crestfallen.

"Money," I answered darkly, tucking the man's intact belongings back in his pocket. "It makes all rational sense melt away. Burn out the natural resources in order to raise money, which they can use to create an artificial life. Boom. A Human's Guide to Success."

"Do you think we should just leave him there?"

"I don't know, should we?"

"Yeah, let's just leave him there."

"You're the boss."

It was then and there that I started to realise why people cared so much about this planet. Because it contained valuable resources that money couldn't ever dream of equating to. Because those resources were quickly slipping from our grasp as easily as those damn weeds slipped out of mine, and that needs to stop. Not yesterday, not tomorrow, right now.

Come on, don't groan at me. Remember, this is the only home you have right now. I mean, if NASA chucked you onto Mars, there's a problem of you not being able to breathe, amirite? Even with a spacesuit, you wouldn't last long. But that's besides the point.

Don't take the Earth for granted. Know why? Because it's not just a house. It's a living entity, and don't be freaked out by that. It's not going to spontaneously swallow you whole, but it grows and expands and does everything in its power to keep us alive. You know what we do? We mow down everything it offers, we use it to poison something that used to be so pure. We're polluting the Earth in so many ways, and it needs to stop.

So, here are my final tips of the day. Turn off the tap when you're brushing your teeth, reduce, reuse, recycle almost everything you got. Bike to school, rollerblade, even ride a camel to school or work! Turn off lights when they're not needed. Save the Earth, because it needs us. It's begging for our cooperation. We need to do something before it's too late.

There's just one thing that I wouldn't recommend. Don't go knocking out random businessmen with shovels, please. We don't need more than one lethal Maddie Gordon running around on this beautiful planet.

~~~

A/N: I know this chapter is... strange, but I don't know how to fix it. I created the Chalky Hearts characters (Maddie and Nathan) at a young age and I gave them (especially Maddie) very over-the-top personalities, so that shone through here as well. Something about this chapter doesn't sit right with me, but I'm also too busy (and lowkey stressed about COVID-19) to properly read and edit this. I will come back to it eventually.