Dear flesh and blood who can read,

Everything created in this universe shall die and be forgotten one day. I am no different here. I am the same as every collection of atoms created in this universe. Which is to say, I too have a timeline. My life has never been my own. It has always been the influence of people around me or on me.

Mine is a big family. I have 7 brothers and sisters out of which I am the 3rd daughter. Every one of my family members are one of their kind. My father is a very strict man. He glows all the time being the source of living for all of us. He is the one and only big inspiration for me. My mother on the other hand is a very beautiful person. She sacrifices her body to provide me with light. She always stays with me and supports me even if she can’t help much, but I am the one who forgets her when my father is around. I am always happy to have a family like this. However, I am afraid I will have to leave all of this very soon.

My life started with basic elements of nature: Air, water, soil, fire and sky. However, over a few years, signs of life sprouted out. The best moment in my life. I was so happy that day. I watched and took care of them with nature's aid. One life turned into many. Every life started evolving on their own which ended up in the creation of humans, the worst and the best evolution of life in me. After a few centuries of human evolution into sensible minds with greater powers than other creatures, things changed a lot. Man-made objects came into action. In the beginning, things were made out of natural things and given back to nature. However, as time rolled by humans made things that was far beyond what nature can accept back. That harmful stuff affected me to a great extent. I started rejecting those things in defense but humans…. they didn’t understand the cue. They went on taking extreme measures to keep themselves comfortable and at ease…. deforestation, polluting all the natural resources available for free and all these made me choke. My lungs were full of smoke. My skin started getting flaky here and there. Burns, cuts and bruises grew in count. I was abused to a great extent as a gratitude of providing them with love and care. At one point, humans started facing the consequences for their mistakes as I couldn’t hold my urge to take actions and yet…. there was no change in their behavior.

Humans destruction of me was proposed as the start of the new epoch in my history by a human called Antonio Stoppani in 1843. He let people know that this particular era was to live longer in my history which broke my heart. Nevertheless, I was happy that some out of these irresponsible bunch of flesh and bones decided to become a voice for me.

After that proposal, over in the 19th and 20th centuries, humans considered the dropping of humanity in humans as a markable sign in my history. That’s when they came up with the name ‘Anthropocene’ after a series of inventions of other names to mark the stupidity of humans. Around the year 2000, chemists named Paul Crutzen and Great Lakes said that the mark of this era would have begun around 1784 when steam engines were invented which resulted in rise of carbon dioxide and methane in atmosphere.

This is just history and some terminologies to name the harm. But the actual takeaway should be not to harm me more than already done. No matter how many of them shout and carry boards saying to save me, it is not going to help unless they change. The new epoch thing is just a help in the future to track back the past, but with a situation as I am in, holding records are the least thing I am considered about. People need to know what they are getting themselves and me into. I could break down and die very soon after which none of these will even matter. It will just be another end of a massive creation. That’s all that it will become. You people need to prove late Antonio that the new epoch that’s said to be marked soon will not last as long as he thought. The next epoch-marking meeting should be about the healing me. And, the person carrying this message for me should get another chance to carry a thankful letter from me. That’s all that I ask for.

Mother Earth.

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