https://everythingspeakstome.com/files/original/713737298c7768388ae1cd6d385d88e0.jpeg 14b76b57a989450c9519c8c930a6a976 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource After The Rise ... Description An account of the resource Using elevations and water level projected on EyesOnTheRise.com, these speculative fictions explore the world that was Miami after sea levels rise 6 or more feet. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Administrator Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Please post your written submission in this field. The images you would like to include should be posted as attachments below. Dear unknown reader, my name is Nicole Avelina, I am a 24 years old Cuban, who grew up in Miami, Florida with my dad, Nick, my mother, Eleanor, and my dog Sol. The majority of my family still resides in Cuba, as they lack the proper resources, as well as restrictions to surpass the very democracy on which we stand on. The following entries were written when I was 15 years-old during a time when a sea rise of six feet flooded our city, as well as many areas around the world. This experience led to a greater connection with my faith, while also a lack of faith. 06/07/2100 Um… Yesterday was anything but normal. I did not expect it to go that way. I knew that there was that global warming warning for the past decade, but it wasn't supposed to happen like that! Anyways, for my future readers omg am I still thinking it will blow up like Anne Frank’s diary here is what happened today. Stuff of my future nightmares. Instead of a usual alarm, I woke up to my phone buzzing so hard, it fell off my nightstand. It was that familiar sound of an amber alert, which was the first thing that surprised me, since I sort of assumed they never rang in the nighttime. When I finally found the strength in me to take a look at the phone, there was the message that I had to reread multiple times, and I still was confused about it. “Sea levels are rapidly rising. Stay at home. Evacuation services are on the way.” We turned on the news, to images of flooded streets, issuing an executive order, to remain in our homes. We had been home for the past few days, as the rain had been quite heavy. It was surprising that we had yet to lose electricity, and then I remember we have the privilege of owning a generator. We knew if not yet, many would lose power. I stood up and walked to the window to see the helicopters circling around in the sky. Soldiers were dropping off the ladders with huge bags strapped to their backs. Somewhere behind them, just above the horizon, loomed the dark cloud, lightings igniting sections of it. I remember how I touched the window absentmindedly and felt the glass vibrate under my fingers. It snapped me right into a clear mind. Knocks sounded through the house - someone was at the main door, knocking with such strength that it overpowered the sirens. I scrambled out of the room, grabbing a pair of pants along the way and jumping into them. Through the frosted windows of the door, I see a looming silhouette. Man. He held something in his bag.I saw my mom rush past me down the stairs and hastily open the door. The man was a soldier. He handed her a plastic bag, saluted, said something that did not reach me, waved goodbye and went back into the street to get up the rope ladder. In a small gap while the door was closing I saw his shoes being sucked in by mud the second he made a step. World spinned. A feeling of someone hugging my chest so tight, my bones felt as if they were breaking came to me. The loud sound of sirens was matching the beat of my heart (it felt so, but I doubt it now, since it seems to be physically impossible). I was quickly consumed by my panic. Last thing I remember clearly was that I squatted down right next to the stairs, hands over my ears as tears blurred my vision. Someday I will manage to stay clear-minded enough to remember what was happening during it. 06/09/2100 I woke up in my mom’s arms, as she hugged me tightly. Dad was standing over us. The light of his phone was illuminating his face that wore an unreadable expression that honestly scared me more than anything else that happened today. You know that feeling, when even if you are a teenager/young adult, and you think you know everything, there is still that knowledge that your parents know better than you, regarding the living and survival, at least. So when I saw that expression on the face of a man that was supposed to hold us through those times, I realized that the world had gone mad. Sol licked my face, and I hugged his head close to my chest, thanking the universe for giving me him, my most prized treasure. With him, I thought I would be able to get through it. Later, as my mom was unpacking the bag the soldier gave her in the morning, she explained to me that no one expected such a sea level rise, and that all we know is that currently, the coasts of Florida are being covered with water. Electricity was out, water was on last reserves but, she assumed, it would stop soon too. Dad joked that we don’t need water since we can just step outside. I think I laughed. Said coasts were put under quarantine. All the businesses closed (including the waffle house OMG), the mobile services went down (well, sometimes the signal comes through for a second, but it doesn’t count). It was strongly encouraged not to leave the houses at any time, even to the backyard.Then, mom said that our community was one of the last ones to be evacuated, since we were somewhat above the sea for now. The only thing we were dealing with is our entire backyard and frontyard turning into a mush overnight. Yeah… We were sort of lucky. By the way, in the pack, we received canned soup, some bread, bottles of water and a slip of paper that we were supposed to fill out till the next soldier visit, which was basically a consensus to count heads in our home and, in case any of us had dire health issues that had to be immediately taken care of, a file to attach documents to receive medication or any other aid stuff. I spent the day trying to indulge myself with a book, but it ended up with me laying on the bed with Sol resting his head over my chest as I stared into the ceiling, listening to the sounds of the outside world. 06/20/2100 We got more food but he said that they will slow down the delivery of food services, and send packs that would count for a week rather than bi-daily, as soon as they figure out who was staying where and how much food did every household need. At least he brought some dog food. We were not running out of it, but the thought was appreciated.There was still some food in the refrigerator that mom did not throw out and what we cooked yesterday, so we would have been fine for a couple days anyways, now that I think of it. Sure we were eating much less than before, but honestly, we spent a lot less energy either. The only time we went outside was when the sun dried the pavement enough for dad to take Sol on a fifteen-minute walk. They still came back with dad’s shoes soaked as he held Sol. Anyways, the day was better not because of this, but because it was Saturday, and on Saturday it was like that anyway usually, it was a lazy day for me, when I would spend hours on my phone, book, sketchbook, homework, whatever, in my room, Or hangout with friends, but that option is not possible. Damn, I keep mixing up the past and present tenses. I hope this diary will be legible. I wonder how my friends are doing. I know Alicia was most likely evacuated on the first day, since she lives in a house right next to Miami Beach. It was not an apartment, and one-story at that. If she is not evacuated still, she has it so much worse than me, so I really hope she is okay. Danny should be in his home. He lives in the apartment about 20 minutes from us, and those are the safest ones for now, as long as the water did not make the earth unstable to the point that the building would slide. It should take a week for that, as the soldier said, so as soon as the government finished with one-story houses on the low levels, they were supposed to save the buildings. Especially the ones on the coastlines. So Danny is fine for now. He will be saved before me, but he is fine.Rinna is in her university dorm. I honestly have no idea what is going on with her, so I prefer now to think about it before I will spiral into panic. [Predicted date of our community from being evacuated is in two weeks] 06/28/2100 Being confined to our homes has led us to be closer with our neighbors. Seems like we are not the only ones who are going crazy these days. We lived for three years next to each other, and we never thought of talking, and yet not even a week of levels rising went by, and we are desperate enough to overcome social anxiety and finally talk to someone else outside our families. Mom and dad looked like they had a blast talking to them. I just hung around, listening to the conversation for a while, but it started slipping into current conditions, so I hid in my room, when the crazy thought came to me. My neighbors have a son named Joel, who is 4 years old, who I entertain often by playing indoor hide and seek, and coloring. In my room, the window is pointed at the driveway and main street. And right below it, there is a little piece of roof that overhangs the entrance, and since I had nothing else to do, I might as well use it to my benefit.I opened the window, slid the anti-mosquito net out, and climbed out. Sitting on the roof calmed me, surprisingly. Usually, I am afraid of heights, but as I laid down, staring into the sky, basically cloud-gazing, I found that my head was the clearest that all the days of this catastrophe as adults named it. It was peaceful, the sky. Even the helicopters that sometimes interfered with the peace were not annoying and I learned to push their sounds in the back of my mind. As I laid there, I kept comparing this situation with the Covid 19 quarantine. Obviously, the premise is different on the base-line, but it ended up with similar results, everyone staying at their homes, without knowledge of what will happen next day. I noticed the cloud above me that looked like a bunny, and I climbed back into my room to grab a sketchbook out to draw it. I made myself a challenge to try to draw the figures that I see in clouds, without those figures looking like clouds. It sort-of worked, and now, two pages full of animals are added to my list of art-that-I-don’t-really-like-but-it-will-suffice. And one of the sketches is a surprisingly detailed tiger that I am lowkey proud of, honestly. I only went back into my room when I noticed neighbors leaving. They had those plastic shoes that I don’t know the name of, but they were tall, and looked like colorful buckets. We did not have those, which is a pity. The levels are still rising, though obviously slower than the first night, and instead of a slightly-wet yard, we have a full-on swamp out there. Before I closed the window, I heard a cacophony of toads singing in harmony. Like I said, a swamp. 07/10/2100 I woke up in panic. I think I had nightmare after nightmare. It is interesting how in movies, main characters wake up screaming from the nightmares, but it had never happened to me. I wake up silently with my lips being obnoxiously dry, since I sleep with my mouth open. As soon as I woke up, I started crying. The window was dark, and I sort of could hear an incoming thunderstorm, which meant I couldn't repeat yesterday and chill on the roof. Annoying. I got down the stairs and headed into the kitchen, only to realize my socks were wet half-way through. The water is inside. It is in large puddles around the floor, and dry sections were there only because of surface tension that held the water from covering the entirety of the floor. The rug in the main room was completely soaked. Dad got down the stairs, and I could physically see the desperate realization on his face. He looked around the floor and ended up staring at the main door for a full minute, as if hoping he was still sleeping. I shared that feeling with him.Mom threw a full on panic, that I hid from in my room with a quickly-made sandwich. I used the last bit of lettuce on that sandwich. I got down when the soldier came in. He darkly gazed over the floor situation, as he only shook his shoulders at mom throwing multiple questions and statements at him, which made me feel bad. I bet we were not the only ones in such a mood today. The entire street behind him was covered in water.He said something along the lines of “we are trying to evacuate everyone as soon as possible” but it sounded so redundant, that even he himself winced at it. Dad sighed, put a hand on my mom’s shoulder, pushing her away, thanked him for the food and took the packet. Today, we received a couple of fruits and I took a lot of joy from eating an apple. The soup and sandwich were getting annoying even if just over a week went by, and the apple was something new. I wanted something sweeter, but I assume the government did not consider chocolate a necessity. The soldier left without saying anything else. Mom continued pitying the floor and I sat on the couch, as the thought hit me.If… if we were evacuated, we would never come back. The house will forever be half-sunk. Everything that I own, that I will not pick up, will be lost. The water is not coming back down. Florida is lost to nature, Well, Miami is for sure. 07/18/2100 I can’t sleep right now. It is three in the night, and my head is full of ugly thoughts. I started looking around and thinking what I will grab with me and what I will leave behind. I really don’t want to leave anything. Maybe it is not the end? What if scientists think of some sort of cooling pump that they will install in the middle of the north pole and it will freeze the water and suck it back into the iceberg. I still wonder why the water rose so quickly, though. Wasn’t it predicted that the sea levels would rise so noticeably in years, not overnight? Was it something else? I hope when we will be evacuated, they will tell us. Maybe some meteorite fell? Either in the ocean, which caused this sort of a tsunami, and it will go away, or on one of the poles, which caused ice to melt, in which case it is not reversible. There were a lot of posts about the meteorites passing by Earth lately, and I remember seeing some posts that if one of them fell, most of humanity would die because of plates shaking up everything, causing civilizations to die in multiples of earthquakes. Sort of like Pompeii. Ooooh. It is like Pompeii, if you think about it. The city is overflown, so that it causes everything to freeze in time, and causes everyone to die. I… hope this story will not end up with me dying, but by the end of it, Miami and all the shores will turn to ghost civilizations, only to be researched for years to come. My house will either be destroyed, or preserved. No, it will not be like that. Technology exists now, so it will be possible to explore Miami as soon as they evacuate everyone and as soon as the rising stops, whatever the reason for the rise is. Maybe, they will start making excursions here. In that case, I hope they will share some of the income from those excursions with people who suffered in this disaster…Oh shit. It is not just Miami, is it? Wasn’t it like 40% of the US population living on the coastlines? In that case it is not just Florida, is it. What is going on everywhere? It can’t be that bad, right? They are receiving the food from somewhere, right? If all major cities are being overflown by water, it wouldn’t be possible for them to organize a feeding service, right? They would have thrown all the efforts into rescue. Why do they even spend the effort feeding? Maybe they take a family, bring it into the camp, load the helicopter with food, then fly back into the area, deliver the food and then rescue another family after emptying out the reserves? I can’t think of another way. I hope the soldiers get enough rest. We have it somewhat easy, my house has stone tile floors and barely any wood furniture. I imagine other houses would have this strong rotting smell in a week or so, if they have wood or carpet on first floors. I need to sleep. The sun is coming up. I hope mom will not will not wake me up. 07/22/2100 Today, I woke up by Sol licking my face, almost warning me something was wrong. I sort of forgot about him during the night, but he always acts like my alarm if I sleep past 10 in the morning. Umm… The water rose again. My toes were completely covered in the water when I was in the kitchen. Dad made us eat on the second floor. It was sunny outside, so after I ate yet another portion of tomato soup - I will throw up tomorrow after eating it, I just know it - I went straight on the roof, and when I climbed, I almost instantly got overwhelmed by the sheer number of helicopters in the sky. I could count more than twenty today. None of the soldiers who were getting down had bags on their backs, and the families who were getting inside the helicopters barely had their bags with them. I rushed back to my parents and told them, so my dad - not forgetting to scold me for getting out onto the roof first - went out with me and looked at the scene. I looked into his eyes and I could see his thoughts circling in head. He clicked his tongue and went back inside.“Gather necessities,” he said to me. I cried. I gathered everything. I was now in the helicopter. Yeah. I only had time to stuff some of my clothes and books into the bag when the soldier, the same one who brought us food, knocked on the door. I should learn his name, actually, he was the savior of our family, but give me a break, it was the last time I saw my house so I don’t really like him by association, my thoughts are getting all jumbled. I have my sketchbook with me, a plushie, Sol, some of my clothes, the stash of money that I kept. Some of the books, some other small things and… and that's it. Dad holds my documents, mom stares out of the window, and I am trying to obsess myself by writing here.I really did not know what was coming when I was writing in the night, didn’t I. They rescued us earlier than predicted because they did not predict the levels to rise this fast. Now they threw almost all of the efforts into rescuing people. As the soldier told us when we just got inside the helicopter, a lot of countries sent help to all coastlines. Apparently, the US did not get the worst of it, even when so much of our population lives next to the coastlines, since Iceland is almost completely submerged by now. They do not disclose the reason for the rising levels. Whatever,I feel kind of empty. I guess leaving your home behind with no warning does that to you. I push dad’s knees and ask him if I could switch spots with him and look out the window, and he allows me to after he grabs Sol. When I look out, I see land being completely covered by water. It is interesting to see palms sticking out of pools. Some of the houses are completely submerged. Some houses have people camping, even their houses have two or three stories, but then I assume that there might be much more than just water that caused them to do that. Wallpaper peeling, furniture getting soaked. I am lying to myself, I do not understand why some of them decided to go on the roof. What for? Why is it better there than inside their homes? Maybe they are hoping they will get rescued sooner if they do that? It feels interesting, narrating my thoughts in this diary as I am thinking about them, I never tried doing that before. I guess this diary is going with me to the grave, since now that I am thinking of it, I don’t want anyone in the future reading it and judging me for being too dramatic. My thoughts are a mess.I bet my future is even a bigger mess. But, I guess, I had the worst of it, alongside all of humanity. What can be worse than experiencing a full-on epidemic, and then water apocalypse in less than a freaking decade? Aliens? Let's hope aliens take pity on us. Help humanity survive what is ahead of it. Thank you. Help us. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Diary of Nicole Avelina Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 04/17/23