Chapter 2: Harmony Deshay.

January 12, 2052

 Suppose I could introduce myself, my name is Harmony Faith Deshay, I am 18 years young, I see the world as a cold disturbing place. But living in poverty will do that to you. I fend for my younger siblings, I have 5 other siblings, Max is 13, Katherine is 9, Prue is 6, Derek is 4, and Thomas is 2. My dad he ran off after mom found out they were having another baby, so I was there for mom, I was there for her when Derek was born as well, Dad was gone, he was working or some lame excuse. Probably sleeping with the woman down the street. The seven of us live in a small poor town in Ontario, after all Canada is now among the poorer countries.

I got up this morning at 4:30am, I get up that early to go out and gather some food for breakfast, I wish I could get more for my family, but it’s hard to feed six mouths, I’m not including myself because I normally go without during breakfast because I won’t the kids to get the most of the food, and to let my mom have some. We leave at 7a.m, to begin walking to school which is quite some ways away, I don’t go to school anymore, I just walk Max, Katherine, Prue, and Derek to school, it’s about an hour walk on a good day. A good day is a day when no one is sick, I didn’t wake up late, it’s not raining or storming out. But don’t get me wrong we have quite a few bad days while walking to the school, but we get through it.

I just arrived back at home, it’s 9am. It was a good day for the walk to the school, it’s going to be a warm day today, I just know it. I remember when people used to tell me that at one point years ago in 2010 it used to snow and be below zero, now we’d be lucky if it got as low as zero.

 Now to go check on mom. Mom, she’s sick, we don’t know with what, she’s been like this for months, I don’t think she’s going to pull through. I won’t tell the kids that though, I always tell them that she’ll be okay, because I don’t want them to do any worrying, that’s my job. She doesn’t look too good today, she’s pale, and she says she’s in pain. I wish I could help her with the pain, but we can’t afford that.

Next on the list? To go outside with Thomas and take him for a walk down to the main part of this small town. We run into a few people that are a little strange, I sighed and picked up Thomas and told him to not go anywhere when he’s on the ground by himself. After that we walk into a small shop. The lady greets us, I nod and walk up to her and ask her if there was anything I could give to her in return for some food, she just looks at me and shakes her head slowly as if not wanting to, then told me to come back tomorrow because the shop owner would be in. I smiled in return and carried Thomas out and we walked back home. The whole way home he kept pointing at things, and telling me some of the things he knew, what they were called.

Without these kids, my brothers and sisters, I don’t know what my life would be like. But I like it, don’t get me wrong, it’s hard, with no father around, and my mother dying, sometimes I’m not able to put any food on the table for the kids, and I feel bad. They go to sleep hungry, with a rumble in their tummy. I take them for walks if I can’t feed them in hope that we will find something, anything. Just to feed them. At times we do find something, but a majority of the time we don’t.

When Thomas and I are back at home, I hear mom coughing, I put Thom down and went running into her room. I asked her if she was alright, and she smiled at me weakly and shook her no, she told me that she might not make it through the night. I dropped to the side of her bed and looked at her in the eyes and told her she will, she has to, we love her. She nodded trying to show me that she believed me, but I knew she didn’t believe that she would make it through the night.

I stayed with her for a while until Thomas came in and sat in my lap and looked up at me, then up at our mom. “Momma.” He said in that cute child voice, I smiled at him and told him yep, that was our momma. He had reached out his hand and put it on her hand, smiling and giggling. If only Thomas knew what was really going on. But then again, he might. I got up and picked him up, he looked at me with so much innocence in his eyes, and I smiled at him. I took him out of the bedroom and put him on my bed to put him down for his nap. I stayed with him until he was sleeping soundly.

That’s when I went out again, wandering to our garden to see if the plants that had managed to grow had ripened at all. I was shocked, some of the vegetables did. I picked them, and put them in my dad’s old jacket pockets that I was wearing. Soon after I was going back down to the little town square to see if I could get some meat for some of the vegetables. I didn’t really care what type of meat, I just wanted enough to feed the kids and mom. I thought I was going to be unsuccessful, but at the last minute, a man, came running after me and offered a few pieces of meat for the cost of nothing. I was shocked, because we all needed something, but he didn’t want anything in return. I took the meat and said thank you and was on my way back home.

By that time it was around 1pm, Thomas was awake, and I give him a bit of a green pepper to nibble on until dinner time. Around 2pm, I took Thomas for another walk, but to go and get the other kids. I mostly carried him because I wanted him to have energy to walk a bit on his during the walk home. When I signed all the kids out of school, they all had exciting tales to tell of their school days. At first they all tried speaking at once, that didn’t go over to well, so instead we developed a little list as to who goes first, then who goes after.

Dinner was good, we had a bit of the meat the man had given to me today, I stored most of it to save for a later day, and also stored the vegetables, cause who knows how long everything will last. We all went outside to play and horse around to burn off the rest of their energy, everyone except mom. She was still in bed, sicker than sick.

I told Max I would be right back, and to keep an eye on the kids. I ran inside to go check on mom, she was sleeping, she had pain creases on her forehead, and I walked over to her and starting rubbing her back and kissed her forehead before I left. “I love you mom, we all do. Pull through this.”

9pm is bed time for everybody, even me. I got everyone tucked into their beds, and read to the ones who wanted to be read and kissed them good night. I walked into Max’s room, well, we share the room together. He looked up at me, and asked how mom was, and I told him how she really was and he sighed. He knew she wasn’t going to be around much longer. He asked me to tell him some memories I have when mom and dad were still together and I tell as much as I remember. I was laying down beside him when I was telling them to him. Sleep both stole us away.