The sun is shining in your eyes. It is bright and warm. Bright and warm are good. Bright and warm are safe. You look around; the stone boulders stand tall and beautiful. The wind brushes gently past you. It is an abnormal wind; it usually does not go west to east but, other than that singular peculiarity, you know it is going to be another routine day.
You look down as you fly high above the boulders—rocks of granite and glass. They are tall, reminiscent of the Giant’s Causeway. You see the metal dragons, glowing in the sunlight, slithering on the ground below between the boulders. The dragons are loud and noisome but you know better than to challenge them. Their eyes shine fire. Fire is bad. Fire is dangerous.
You look for food—good food. Wheat. Maybe even corn. None of those disgusting
acorns. You see the people. They look like ants from this high. They move like them too. No.
They move more like an unending liquid, a ravage river, going to wherever the easiest path leads them. Purposeless. Moving but not progressing. Walking but to no discernible end. They are as numerous as ants. Too many to count.
At the end of the day, you manage to find some food, mostly around the periphery of the stony desert where the bright boulders ascend to the clouds. There was not enough to bring back, or even to fully satisfy your hunger. Food has been getting harder to find lately, nothing too concerning but harder nonetheless. The sun sets. Red shines from behind the smoke emanating from one or two of the larger boulders.
Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.
The sun is shining. It is bright but cold. Bright is good, but cold, cold is very bad. The
cloudless sky seems duller. You look around. The boulders seem more solid, more heavy, and as dead as the air itself.
Oh well.
You examine beneath you as you fly, flying lower than you usually do but not within
range of the dragons or ants. The ants seem to be agitated, moving faster than before. At least you think they are. Now that you think about it, there are less ants than there used to be. Maybe the dragons ate them.
Once more, you must go to the skirts of the stone desert. Recently, you have only found a little pollen. If you are lucky you may even find an acorn today, none of those gross blueberries. You always return at night hungry, but you are happy finding any food at all.
You go far from the city, very far. You see some ants on the ground below. They seem to be sleeping. You have never seen ants all the way out here. A new flock migrating with the weather, maybe?
It was another long day but you are home again. You are hungry. You are always hungry as of late but at least you found an acorn. That was good enough. The sun sets. Red, dark red, shines from behind plumes of smoke. Lots of plumes. Lots of lots. Should you be concerned about them? No. Those are over there. You are right here. Right here is safe.
Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.
The sun does not shine. It is dark and cold. Freezing. Freezing is bad. The sky is as black as a river deep, but it is not as quiet. You hear thunderings vibrating in the distance. Many thunderings. You see lightnings too. But the flashes—they are much too low to be lightning. The thunderings, they sound peculiar. They sound too fast and too rhythmic.
Thunder goes “boom.” Thunder does not go “ta-ta-ta-ta.” You do recognize the
occasional “boom” you expect to hear but the other noises are nothing you can remember.
Oh well.
You go back to sleep, nesting your head under your wing. You have slept through many storms before. This one will be no different.
The sun is shining. Yes, the red sun shines, yet it is still dark. It is still cold. Everything is wrong. Wrong is bad. Wrong is uncertain, and uncertainty is dangerous. The sky is black. Not black with night; it is black with… what is that, a storm cloud? No. No, that is smoke. Why is there smoke?
The air reeks of the revolting smell of burning. You remember this smell. It is what you smelled when the old forest was blazed. The forest. Your home. Your family. You would never forget that smell. But your new home could not blaze—rocks, stones, boulders, they cannot burn like wood and grass, can they?
You begin that task, as old as time yet renewed every day—the search for food. The wind is blowing west today. That is a good sign. Maybe you will even find an acorn today. You can hope, at least. Even those have been hard to find as of late. You look around you as you fly between the stones. You fly as low to the earth as you can get without being in range of the ants or dragons. The ants seem to be all the more flustered. They move this way and that way. Despite how loud they are, they are never of one voice. No two sounds are ever the same, save for one you have heard many ants repeat: “Rsa,” “Amka,” “Rsa,” “Amka.” Ants are such strange creatures.
Now that you got a good look, you notice there are even less of them. Where are they
going? Are they looking for food as well?
The sun has long since nestled beneath the horizon when you return home. Once again, you return hungry. You found no food, not even a blueberry.
Oh well.
Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.
The sun does not shine. No, the sun does not shine but it is bright and it is warm. Bright and warm are good but not this bright and warm. If you had to guess, you do not imagine it could be any later than half after moonset. The sun does not shine half after moonset, does it?
The light, that great light far within the desert of stone and dragons—it is enough to
almost blind you. A moment passes and it dims. It does not go away but you can see it better now. The world around you begins to rumble. Rumble! RUMBLE! And that noise! Oh, what a terrible noise! You think you might go deaf!
But no. It too passes and you look up. Must have just been lightning. You look up at the tall cloud standing where the sun appeared. Very tall, that cloud. It reached all the way to the stars. It reminds you of a tree. How odd! There are other clouds about it, like rings. You have never seen a storm like that before!
How odd indeed.
The sun shines. It is dark, it is cold, and it is as quiet as a blazed forest. Nothing is as it should be. That is bad. Silence is very, very bad. The sky is gray, grayer than you thought possible. It is snowing. The snow is black and dark and not at all cold or icy. Strange. You have no time to ponder over it. It is snowing. You must find food.
Low to the ground you go. Very low. You wish you could go higher but you simply do not have the energy. It is fine. You do not fret. You will find food, sooner or later. You know it. Mm, just the thought of blueberries makes your belly churn. Besides, all the dragons, or whoever of them remain, are all sleeping so you are surely safe flying lower than normal.
You enter deeper into the blazed forest of rock and steel. The rocks grow taller the deeper inward you go. Taller and more splintered. Broken. How could the ants ever live in a place like this? And where are the ants?
You fly between the rocks. You fly. Until suddenly, as sudden as the eye of a storm and as far as you can see — there is nothing. Nothing at all.
Rocks used to be here. You can see the remnants and ruins of them still reaching out from the scorched earth. Was this not where the strange storm cloud was? How long ago was that?
You look for food. You look and look and look and look and look. You find nothing. The sun is getting low—already? You better head back home despite your stomach’s complaints.
The night seems heavier than normal. More oppressive. More uncertain. Without a doubt,
it is much blacker too. You feel more tired than usual. You must be coming down with
something. As far as you can see, darkness. Darkness is bad.
Oh well.
You need to rest now.
Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.
Biography:
My Name is Vickie Gottlieb and I submitted a story from my son, Alum and graphic artist, Joshua Gottlieb. I am a stay-at-home mom who is now attending Aims pursuing an accounting degree. Joshua is my son. He is a young student currently working toward a career after completing his degree through Aims.
When I read his story, I was truly touched. Joshua is concerned about the growing climate of wars and conflicts in the world. As a mother, I can relate to his fear. Growing up during the Cold War, the threat of Nuclear war was very real. His story brought back the same feelings I experienced as a child. I had hoped that, after all these years, this would not be something the next generation would have to fear—but it seems that is not the case.
Joshua, a deep thinker and very creative, combined his concerns with the written word. I believe many people share our thoughts and concerns about the global environment that feels increasingly tense, with conflicts and nuclear threats resurfacing. The Dove in his story represents us all.
Joshua and my hope is to keep this concern in front of people’s minds so that, in our future endeavors, we can help inspire change—change that will eliminate the threat for Joshua, his peers and for our future generations.