Countless solar currents ride the tides of star birth and supernovas. These cosmic storms tear holes, puncturing our thin ozone as the northern and southern lights blend to create a condensed, delicate rainbow of whispered extinction.
The sun is now unbridled and unwilling to weaken itself—lifting flesh from our bones in burned and desiccated drifts. We move underground, building warrens of cement and batteries that glow gently into the years that stretch ahead. Our children only know the sky we paint in their nurseries on gray walls.
We write about what we’ve lost, and when it will come back. These are fables, of course. The world will never come back to us. Our scientists have made suits so that we can crawl out of the earth and dwell in its dusty skeleton. We have been told that they are working on a way to knit back the ozone.
But those of us who wander the warren late into the night can see the scientists in their labs. They shake their heads and whisper to one another. When they think no one's watching they do what we all do: press their hands to the cold walls and cry.
Autumn Bettinger is a short-form fiction writer and full-time mother of two living in Portland, Oregon. She is a 2024 Fishtrap fellow, has won the Tadpole Press 100-Word Writing Contest, the Silver Scribes Prize, and has been highly commended in the Bath Flash Fiction Awards.
This story was shortlisted in the April 24 Monthly Micro Competition.
Evocative. Breathtaking. Achingly human. These are only a few of the things I’ve learned to anticipate out of your writing, Autumn. You’re incredible. I can’t wait to continue to read your work for years to come. You’ve got such a wonderful gift.