From the interstate, we primarily saw rolling farmland. I wondered what we could've seen if we were taking some back roads. I was in charge of feeding Virgil directions, but between turns I liked to research the local area, as cell service allowed. Apparently, before human development, Ozaukee County was a good portion bog. The bogs that remained now stood quietly as habitats for so many species, and a considerable amount of them were threatened or endangered. What a cruel fate—to be the last of your kind.
I was the last of a kind, in a way. I was born November 1999, right on the cusp of the end of the millennium. My birth just about marked the end of the Millennials, the end of the 90's kids, the end of the 20th century. I was born into an old world on the cusp of something new, something grander. Maybe that something was some sort of mass extinction event that we couldn't feasibly prepare for—the Y2K that never came. I wondered what it'd be like to go extinct. At least it wouldn't be so lonely, you'd be surrounded by the souls of all your kin in the afterlife.
Of course, that's if you believed in an afterlife. I didn't.
Gradually, the farmlands gave way to small suburban communities that passed in blurs. From atop the interstate, I could only spy the orange streetlamps and silhouettes of houses in their little neighborhoods. And then the buildings began creeping closer and closer to the highway, growing taller more imposing. We were approaching the city.
I wondered what Milwaukee looked like before development. I wondered how many animals had gone extinct here.