It was a dark and stormy night when I received the call. My heart was pounding as I answered, unsure of what to expect.
“It’s done,” said the voice on the other end. “We’ve done it.”
I couldn’t believe it. After all these years of work, all the sleepless nights and endless meetings, we had finally succeeded.
It was a strange feeling, knowing that the world was finally free. It was as if a great weight had been lifted from our shoulders. We had worked so hard to achieve this, but it all felt too easy, too perfect.
—
I remember when the First Assembly was called for the ‘New World Treaty’, I couldn’t shake off the feeling of unease. Even though the treaty was a milestone, monumental actually
‘ensuring the protection of all living things and the preservation of the planet’
I couldn’t help but think – what if it is all a trap?
They always told me I was quite the cynic. And yet a cynic that was happy to be proven wrong… within reason of course.
When we walked towards the Assembly Hall that day, I asked my colleague “Are you sure this is the right thing to do?”
“Of course,” he replied confidently as he nodded in greeting towards the facial recognition roboguard. “We’ve worked too hard for this; we can’t back out now.”
But my doubts lingered as we entered the grand hall filled with dignitaries from all over the world. The first Inter-species Assembly of this magnitude, with their representative flags flickering on the table holograms.
The multitude of flags and differences that our children have so bravely embraced. In my time, you were lucky if you had ventured beyond one or two places outside of your home, let alone the inter-species exchanges they do now in the curriculum.
—
It was a long and winding road that had led us here.
People all over the world, the plant and animal kingdoms, and even the celestial realms were tired of the ongoing conflicts and threats, the constant competition, and fight for survival, all the while our planet withered. We were at the tipping point, even without the threat of nuclear war, which came much too close much too many times than I can bring myself to admit. This dark shadow remained cast over our future.
More citizens of the world turned away from us and looked instead locally to their communities which operated on a strict no weapons policy, held up by our youngest and bravest. ‘Idealists’ we joked at the time, expecting it to all crumble in time. But maybe we were the fools – too entrenched in our past.
‘Disarm or disengage’ was the motto that really set things into motion and given that our fate was tied to the natural environment, well, it was time for a change. One that didn’t threaten our existence, or that of all living things.
One by one, communities went to each other with their demands and concerns, agreeing terms of engagement and accountability. They cut across the artificial borders of the old world so vehemently held on to. The ones that so naively separated us from not only each other, but from the rest.
We knew then. It’s now or never. The surreal dream where the rules of reality didn’t apply, but we were determined to make it a reality.
We needed a global cooperation initiative with other units and organizations including the Intergenerational Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) to provide technical and financial support to dismantle and dispose of their nuclear weapons.
Our Research and Development agencies were so entrenched in developing bigger and better weapons that new focus streams had to be created instead for community support innovation, as the generation of tech-sters had already been adapting intelligence tools for comprehensive local compliance systems. But most of all, we needed to be part of something bigger, together. And there it was. The New World Treaty.
—
As the treaty was signed, I approached the leader of the delegation.
“What happens now?” I asked him.
He smiled, “Now we wait.”
—
As the sun sets, casting a warm glow over my genetically nurtured crops, I feel the weight of the world release from my shoulders. We did it. Finally, the last weapon has been dismantled, and the last nuclear material disposed of.
The end of this long, complex, tiresome journey.
Then, I remember the words of one of the Inter-species Assembly leaders, “This is not the end, but the beginning of a new era.”