Creative Portfolio

“I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them” (Genesis 6:13).

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The sun hadn’t left the sky in seven days. It circled above me endlessly, straddling the horizon but refusing to touch it. The constant sunlight had knocked my brain off its axis; each time that glowing orb rose back up across the heavens, my thoughts became more muddled and my mind moved more like molasses. The near absence of snow uncovered thawed-out vegetation that smothered the plains and snaked up the mountains. I was making sure to keep my rover away from coastlines and cliffs, as the melting permafrost had revealed unstable soil that eroded rapidly and threatened to cause sudden landslides. Ghostly mountains stared down at me from both sides, and every once in a while, I would see faces in the jagged cliffs, stoic and unforgiving, reminding me that my every move was being watched and that I mustn't stray from my responsibility. The midnight sun stared down at me too.

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The rover’s dashboard beeped at me, signaling a remaining distance of a hundred feet to the designated drop-off point. Almost mindlessly, I slid on my gloves, fit each wrench and screw into its appropriate slot on my belt, and calibrated the genome reader before the rover slowed to a graceful halt at my destination. I stepped off of the rover and sauntered over to the capsule, which lay against two boulders at the exact coordinates that I had been given, its parachute draped over the rocks behind it like bedsheets on a corpse.

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Kneeling in front of the capsule, I pulled out the tools from my belt and started unscrewing the hatch. For what must have been the hundredth time that day, I glanced over at the message from Hope displayed on my tablet to make sure it hadn’t changed since the last time I checked it. The knowledge that they were safe seemed to be the only thing that was keeping me from totally spiraling into delusion. 

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Like for every other mission, I had been tasked with retrieving a batch of DNA samples from a capsule that had been sent to my general vicinity. My tablet informed me that this specific capsule contained the genetic information of 35 animals that were endemic to Borneo’s rainforests, each and every last one of which would be faced with imminent extinction should the island undergo more flooding. Once untouched by humanity, they were all at the mercy of the consequences of our interminable recklessness. Now, the Commission wanted me to add them to the Ark.

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The UN Climate Abnormalities Prevention and Protection Commission. A mouthful and a half. The United Nations’ newest and most politically influential commission had been given unprecedented power to enact and enforce legislation across all corners of the globe, with the goal of addressing the planet’s increasingly volatile climate patterns. The Commission was pursuing all conceivable avenues to achieve this goal, but many believed that no matter how many policies they passed or how many pollutants they banned, we were already past the point of no return.

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I unbuttoned my coat, the glaring sunlight having grown unbearable. It was an odd feeling to leave the lab without sporting a full set of tundra gear, let alone with just a coat and jeans. Across Northern Greenland, the temperature today ranged from 7-9 degrees Celsius; a cozy day in the Arctic Circle. As I slid the hood off my head, curled locks of hair rolled down my face, dangling like greasy string puppets in front of my eyes. I ran my hand through my tangled mess of hair—like she used to—to get it out of my face. I couldn’t imagine what Hope would say if she saw me now. Probably something clever.

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Once again, I checked her message on my tablet: Made it to Amsterdam safehouse. Boys are fine. We miss you. See you soon. We were only permitted one message a week with non-Commission personnel, limited to 15 words each, but that one message gave me more relief than a thousand words ever could. After a grueling journey across the Atlantic and through over a dozen restricted borders, Hope and the kids had finally been admitted into a safehouse in Amsterdam on account of my status in the Commission. They didn’t receive much, but they got a roof over their heads, which is more than could be said for most. That was all I could do for them, as a father, as a husband, thousands of miles away from my family when they needed me most. I had convinced myself that continuing with my mission, and more importantly, staying obedient to the Commission, was my way of protecting them, and that only by dedicating myself completely to my work could I ensure their safety.

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After unscrewing the hatch on the side of the capsule, I punched in the code displayed on my tablet. The steel door hissed open, revealing the cargo inside. With my protective gloves, I reached inside and pulled out the container, my eyes gliding over each little vial inside. Their contents sloshed about, sapphire hues playing tricks in the sunlight. It was hard to imagine that each one could give rise to a completely different organism; that the full expanse of life that could be found on this planet could be contained in some meager test tubes. 

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Each vial contained the necessary genetic material for seven male individuals and seven female individuals of a specific species: fourteen sperm cells and fourteen egg cells, which, on command, would be released from their separate chambers within the vial to fertilize. The zygotes would then be transferred to malleable containers to undergo embryogenesis and complete their required gestation period, after which they would be released (or “born”, if you will) as living, breathing animals, no different from the ones in the wild. It was a truly extraordinary process, one which I prayed we would never have to resort to.

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Grunting, I lifted the container and hauled it onto the back of the rover before hopping into the driver’s seat with a resigned sigh. I raised my head up groggily toward that perpetual sphere of fire which refused to direct its gaze away from me, my eyes squinting at its searing glow. 

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“There, done. You happy?” I remarked, as if the midnight sun could hear me. As if it cared enough to listen.

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My hand reached over to the tablet to mark the day’s mission as complete, but just as my finger was about to touch the screen, the entire rover came to life with an urgent buzzing sound. The tablet’s screen flashed red, and a fully capitalized message took up most of its space. It read: 

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DISASTER WARNING: PEARY GLACIER HAS FALLEN. MAJOR FLOODS IMMINENT ACROSS NORTHERN GREENLAND TERRITORY. PLEASE PREPARE OPERATION ARK FOR LAUNCH. UNCAPPC DIRECT COMMAND.

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I blinked, thinking that the sleep deprivation had finally gotten to my brain. Then I blinked again. And again. But the message stayed the same.

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Realizing that I was, in fact, not hallucinating, my mind erupted in a blazing frenzy. I commanded the rover to pull out of its parked position and take me back to the lab, which it did with haste as if it too knew the severity of the situation. On the tablet, I began typing away frantically, trying to contact anyone at the Commission to find out what on God’s not-so-green Earth was going on.

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As the rover sped along the rocky plains, my brain formed questions faster than I could properly think of how to ask them. Peary Glacier was one of the only glaciers remaining in the Arctic Circle, and by far the biggest. But according to all projections, it was under no immediate threat of collapse for the next couple decades at the least. What I did know was that Peary was perched along most of the Northern coast of Greenland, and once it collapsed, it would release over a million cubic kilometers of water onto the island and into the Atlantic Ocean. But before it got to the ocean, it would be going straight through me.

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A meek ding from the tablet pulled my attention back to reality. My torrent of crazed messages had finally been answered by a little response bubble that popped onto my screen. 

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Are you at the lab? Replied Mark, my direct superior at the Commission. I almost laughed at the casualness of it.

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Not yet. What the hell is happening? How did Peary collapse? I messaged back in bewilderment.

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It has been weakening for a while. The heat from the week-long sunlight sped up the process. We expected it.

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Expected it? I tried my best to collect my thoughts before asking the questions that were burning through the side of my skull. Everyone said that it would stand for another 20 years. When did you find out that it was going to collapse?

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The midnight sun sat just above the horizon, following me as I raced across the arid landscape. It seemed to move closer every second, its blinding rays beating down on my head as a stinging sense of panic crawled up my throat.

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We’ve known for a few years now. We tried everything we could to reverse the melting, but nothing worked. It was always going to fall, and now it has. We need you to initiate Operation Ark immediately. 

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Everyone at the Commission had assured me that my mission was only meant to be a failsafe, a Hail Mary, in case every possible thing went wrong and we had no other feasible option. The idea was that, in the event that saving humanity and every other species on Earth was deemed a lost cause, I was to launch the Ark, containing all of its genetic information, up to one of the Commission’s satellites. There, it would stay in orbit for however long it took for the planet to return to a hospitable state. The rocket would then split into separate capsules that would return to various locations on Earth, allowing all the species it contained to be born into a new world ripe for repopulating. 

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You know what this means, right? I typed furiously. Floods across Greenland, Iceland, Northern Canada, Scandinavia. What about all the people there? You’re telling me no one knows that it’s coming? What I really wanted to ask was, “What about Hope? What about Sam? Hank? Joseph? The family that I thought I was protecting by doing the Commission’s work on this lifeless hellhole of an island?”

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Disaster protocols are already in place in every major city. We decided that it was no use starting a mass panic, given how chaotic everything already is. 

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Are you insane? The Commission isn’t going to warn anyone?

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Stop. Listen to me.

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What do you want me to do? Sit here and wait to be drowned?

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Noah. Stop typing. Listen to what I am saying. I paused. Mark rarely used my real name, out of fear that our line of communication could be compromised. It’s not just Peary. He continued. It’s everything. The Greenland Ice Sheet has been losing structural integrity and is at high risk of melting. Once the warmer water from the north floods into Greenland, the ice sheet will likely go along with it. According to the Commission’s projections, if the entire ice sheet collapses and floods into the Atlantic, average global sea levels will rise by nearly 10 meters. By the end of the summer, every coastal city on Earth will be completely flooded, Mark stated, with the bluntness of someone who had already accepted their fate long ago.

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I couldn’t feel anything. I wasn’t sure if I was still breathing. The mountainsides and grassy plains that whipped by my field of vision all congealed into a maddening swirl of gray that surrounded my periphery. The midnight sun loomed greater than ever before, unfalteringly watching my every move. The Commission had known about this threat, one that put the lives of every creature that had enough audacity to roam this Earth in danger, and yet they did nothing. Warned no one. Because they didn’t want the world to see that they had failed—failed, in its mission of protecting humanity from itself. As a mixture of anger, confusion, and dread broiled in my brain, I realized the simple truth that I had been too blind to see: The Ark was never the back up plan. It was the only plan.

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Noah? Are you there? Mark’s words popped onto the screen once again. We need you. This is what you have been training for. 

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Is this really it? That was all my trembling fingers could manage.

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Yes. The floods will kill hundreds of millions, displace billions, and lay waste to our most important cities. When the sea levels rise, The Antarctic ice sheet will start melting even quicker, and once that collapses, it will finish the job if it hasn’t already been done. You need to launch the Ark now before the flood reaches you. Are you at the lab yet? I looked up, and through my dazed panic, I saw the unmistakable silver dome of my lab getting closer and closer. The lab that I had worked and lived in for the past four months, unaware that the weight of the world had already been placed upon my shoulders. I breathed in a heavy sigh. They were all counting on me. Not just the Commission, but the rest of humanity too, whether they knew it or not. The Ark was likely the last chance our species had at survival after the floods laid waste to the planet. All I had to do was launch it.

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Just arrived. I typed back as the rover pulled into the retrofitted garage. 

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Good. Hurry.

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I rolled out of my seat, and with all the strength left in my numbed arms, yanked the container of Borneo samples off of the rover. Stumbling like a drunk, I dragged the metal crate in the direction of the launchpad, where the Ark was waiting in all of its seraphic glory. The midnight sun trailed behind me as I struggled toward the rocket, its flaming stare burning itself into my back.

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The rocket was no more than four meters tall; it was sleek and light, designed for carrying a relatively small load up to orbit and back down upon command. It was the Ark itself, the machine that sat inside the rocket, that was the real sight to behold. Its steel skeleton was colored with a dirty, tar-like hue, and arrays of wires crossed in and out of every gap and crevice in the machine. Within its skeleton, rows upon rows of navy blue vials were stacked atop one another like books on library shelves, each one labeled with a specific species designation. 

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I lumbered past the control panel and up the small ramp that led to the rocket, before dropping the container down in front of its open hatch. Like I had done dozens of times before, I began taking out rows of vials from the crate and slotting them into the Ark. The sun sat beside me, watching me intently as I worked, its furious heat drawing sweat from the skin on my forehead. With each row of samples, I felt the weight of five unique species in my hand; the weight of an inconceivable responsibility that had been thrust upon me.

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After slotting in the last row, I stepped back and gazed at the completed Ark. Individually, the vials appeared as insignificant tubes of blue liquid, but together, they bejeweled the entire interior of the Ark with a dazzling mosaic of cerulean, holding lifelessly still and yet encompassing every imaginable permutation of life on Earth. The walls of blue stared back at me like the depths of the ocean.

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The ocean. I had once promised Hope that, when my mission was over, we would live out our lifelong dream of sailing around the world together as a family, free from the bureaucracy and incessant politicking of the Commission. When my mission was over. As soon as my mind wandered to that blissful fantasy, reality finally hit me with the force of a tsunami: I was never going to see them again. Amsterdam, directly exposed to the North Atlantic and sitting at two meters below sea level, would be underwater within 24 hours. My vision’s focus started to slip; my breath froze in my mouth; my heart pumped the unmistakable poison of guilt through every vein in my body. What was I doing here? Alone, thousands of miles away from the only family I had, doing little science experiments while the rest of the world fell apart like paper under a faucet. I had to do something, anything, to warn them. But I had already used my message for the week, which meant that I could no longer contact Hope. Even if I could warn them, it was unlikely that they would be able to get out of the city in time amongst all the chaos that was about to ensue.

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Unconsciously, my eyes began scanning over the vials that lined the inside of the Ark. Each one, the last hope of an entire race of animal. Soon enough, this would be all that was left of so many of God’s creatures, their magnificence reduced to ooze in a bottle. Millions of years of resilience and evolution, brought to an end by our unbounded arrogance. We had so many chances to change, to make things right, but we kept on poking the bear, expecting it to not wake up. And now the bear had awoken with a growl that would wipe the Earth clean and start it anew, ridding it of the violence and greed that had seeped into its soil and infected the hearts of its children. My gaze drifted to the vial in the very middle of the Ark, marked with the serial number 00001 and the label “Homo sapien”. It looked no different from all the other tubes, and yet it and it alone contained the pure, unalterable reason behind what was about to unfold. 

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What would happen, if this sample returned to a new Earth along with all the others? The humans would be born along with the rest of the animals, and for the first hundred thousand years or so, all would be as it should be. The world would be in balance, and all of its creatures would be living within the natural order of things. Then, at some point, humans would discover fire. They would invent tools. They would develop language. Hunting. Agriculture. The wheel. Murder. Art. Love. Paper. Slavery. Philosophy. Currency. Selfishness. Gunpowder. Mathematics. Genocide. Medicine. The printing press. Corruption. Electricity. Airplanes. Nuclear warfare. All that made us human and inhuman would return, given enough time. The cycle would, once again, reach its climax, and everything that called this planet home would be brought to its knees by our indelible greed and inability to face its consequences.

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I felt my arm reach out and gently detach the vial from its slot in the machine. My feet turned, my legs moved, and I found myself walking out of the rocket. I didn’t stop walking until my boots had left the steel ramp and made contact with the earthen soil. I turned to face the control panel, and a message sprang into existence on the monitor next to it.

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Noah? What are you doing? You need to launch the rocket now, Mark’s message read. I looked down at the cobalt-hued vial in my hand, and saw my own reflection. 

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Noah. Put that vial back in the Ark. Commence launch sequence immediately. I repeat, commence launch sequence immediately. In my dazed state, I didn’t even stop to question how Mark was able to see what I was doing. The midnight sun pressed itself against my face, searing its judgment into my flesh and blinding me with its holy righteousness.

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This is a direct command from the Commission. Remember the covenant that you made. The covenant. The promise that I made to them, that I would do whatever was necessary for the mission, that I would preserve all of the Ark’s genetic information, and that, if need be, I would use it to save the Earth’s many species from complete extinction. But I was no savior, that much I could see clearly now. I couldn’t even save my own family. The Commission didn’t choose me for this mission because I was the most accomplished or experienced geneticist, but because they knew I would remain obedient to the mission no matter the circumstances; because they knew I would follow their commands as if they were scripture.

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I know this is difficult, trust me. Mark’s messages pleaded. But you have to do this. Do it for Sam. Hank. Joseph. Do it for your wife. 

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“Your wife”. It’s like he didn’t even know her name.

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Slowly, but with more intention than anything I had ever done before, my fingers uncurled one by one, and the vial slipped from my hand. It plummeted toward the ground below, and upon contact, the glass shattered, spilling its contents across the rocky surface. Where the liquid met soil, the grass was burnt away, and fluid dried onto the stone within seconds. There, lay the last hope of humankind, a cluster of bubbles and dead cells ready to disappear into the Earth’s embrace. Just as my Hope would too.

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When I looked back up, the sun was no longer sitting beside me. Instead, it was back in the sky, but it wasn’t looming overhead like it had for the past week. This time, it was setting. The heavens were flushed with streaks of amber and scarlet that pierced the wisps of clouds around it with voracious intensity. The mountains that lined the skyline were aglow with the sun’s gleaming wake, celebrating its long-awaited return to slumber. I stood there, frozen still, watching the glimmer of the midnight sun inch slowly to a rest beyond the horizon, as the moon rose from the other end of the world to retain its rightful position in the sky.

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Suddenly, the ground roared with a terrifying tremble. The tremble of a new beginning. A flood of biblical proportions barrelled through the valley, razing everything that lay before it with an undiscriminating wrath. Waves crashed against the mountainsides, ripped hundred-year-old trees up by their roots, and poured new rivers into a landscape that hadn’t seen rain in years. This was the end, in all of its promised spectacle.

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I stepped forward to the control panel, and pressed the launch button. In response, the hatch of the rocket swung closed, and its propulsion engines roared to life, spewing fire against the earth below. Within seconds, the rocket left the ground and raced up toward the ruby tinted firmament, carrying the hopes of over 10,000 species along with it. All except one. 

My eyes followed it as it pierced through the atmosphere into the unknown of space, and I allowed myself to take some comfort in the idea that I had done at least one thing right.

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The flood hurtled across the plains in a storm of wretched divinity, and I watched as it consumed my lab and everything I had built over the last four months, just like how it would inevitably consume everything that everyone had built since the dawn of civilization. The Earth was ready to reclaim what belonged to it with no thought paid to humanity’s anguish, just as we had claimed the Earth with no thought paid to it. In the split second just before the waters reached me, I managed to utter three simple words—her words:

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“See you soon”.