Year 2208.
Today is a special day, today will eat potatoes, they were months that they wanted, now finally it is time to collect the first potatoes of the 'garden if you can call that piece of land. Marco sent to pick them up, is the best, use a small tool that was built with a root, is able to extract without damaging the potatoes. Mark has learned from his grandfather who unfortunately is no more. But not only that he learned from his grandfather knew all the story of their family, their village and all that was once.
"This is an island - his grandfather had told him he was a child - is an island surrounded by sea, but once, many years ago, this was a mountain top where the great grandparents of my great-grandparents came to the summer to chill out on the grass under the trees. They had built these houses to spend their holidays
"What are the holidays?" - Had asked Marco.
"In those days the men worked all year, then allowed a rest period, had their homes in the city and lived there throughout the year. Every now and then came up here to rest and breathe this air clean -
"But in cities the air was not clean? - Asked Marco. -
"no, it was very dirty -
" Why was it dirty? -
"Why to go from place to place the men were using the machines, it was not as now, to go from one village to another, we walk." -
"How were these machines?
"They were of iron boxes with wheels, as the wheels of the truck that we use to carry things from place to place, they had bigger wheels and did a lot of stink.
"But they never went on foot?
"No, they always used the machines, did not know to walk"
"How were the cities? - Asked Marco
"There were many houses, close together, some low, some higher and half the houses were in the streets where the cars went by."
"But where he grew potatoes?"
"Between There were other cities of the fields where he grew potatoes and many other things, there were also many trees, but as these were trees on which grew the fruit that you could pick and eat "
" But they were all for? "
" No, they were only who had the trees "
" And who did not have trees?
"Who did not have the fruit trees had to barter with the potatoes or other things."
"What does it mean to barter?"
"It means that you had to have things in exchange for other things"
"Why now we are all on an island in the sea? "
" Why do men, always using the machines and other things that warmed the air, have melted all the ice of the earth, the sea got up and came up quassù.Tutte in the city are now under water and the men who were unable to leave are all dead. "
" But water is not even here?
"No, now the land has become all the water, leaving only the highest mountains are all islands like ours."
"But then there are still many people on all islands? "
" We think so, but we can not know with certainty because we can not communicate with anyone. "
" But they always will?
"We do not know if anything will change, for now we are content to be there and be able to live peacefully."
Now my grandfather is gone, is buried in a corner of the island where the grandparents and great grandparents are buried in these small community who continue their lives with all their problems.
Marco Island, where he shot a lot now knows all and has made friends with another family who has a bit 'away, but she was born a sympathy between him and Angela, this is the name of the girl. They are very happy together and maybe one day will form a new family. Have bigger problems, the greater the water scarcity that we need to collect when it rains to make it last as long as possible. In the past two centuries, that is, when they were born from these islands, their predecessors have dug large holes and channels in which convey rainwater. When the water ends and yet it does not rain, they have their last reserves, have, well protected from the sun, made of terracotta pots from ancestors, which keep the last remaining water.
Mark's parents and sister Paola, spend their lives to keep up their house. His father grows vegetables, their mother takes care of the sheep, milking every morning and prepares the food. They have a burning stove in which the algae that collects on the beaches of Marco and some dead branch that falls from trees. It is used all over the island, do not throw anything. The most serious problem is when the wind is coming and the waves that take away the strip of beach. The island is still quite large, many families live there, but maybe one day the sea will take it all away and then it 's island will not remember any more. It will be a whole sea. Until the next Big Bang.
