Monday, November 12, 2007

Entry #27

Red Sky Morning
by Mike Martinez


The sky is beautiful this morning, like garnets cast across the sky and it’s horrible too. I remember a time when a red sky in the morning meant it was going to be a bad day for sailors. Now, it’s a bad day for everyone. All those years of a president with his head in the sand about the global climate change has finally cost us.

The fires first started in the west just like always, sure they were worse than ever before, but no one cared- at first. When they began to erupt in Europe and Australia people began to worry. When the Amazon and Congo began to erupt as well there was global panic.

Those of us in the cities never worried too much, it was always out there someplace not in our own streets. Then it happened, Tulsa and Paris exploded on the same day shortly after dawn. We at last began to understand that our atmosphere had finally lost the battle to keep balance. Now any reflective surface was a potential hot spot where the fires could begin.

The glowing red dawn used to mean hot days and high winds at sea, now it carries the smell of char and devastation. The sun sweeps in, and the star that once gave us life now gives us death. Maybe it is only trying to stop humanity and return the Earth back into the natural garden it was meant to be. Or maybe, this is finally our end.


[Mike Martinez is an aspiring writer and resident of Chicago. Recently he became the Lead Member of the Scheduling Team for the Twilight Tales Reading series, which has been meeting weekly since 1993.]

10 comments:

Abhinav said...

Nice one... Begins simply - The sky is beautiful this morning, like garnets cast across the sky and it’s horrible too.
Others all have taken the technique to start off like mysteries, so yours stands out for its unpretentiousness. Takes courage...Bravo!!!

Dottie Camptown said...

Strong images and moral underpinning. Too often my stories are silly so it's nice to read something that challenges me to think more.

Sarah Hina said...

Intense, and thought-provoking, take on the picture. I could almost smell the "char and devastation." Nice work.

Oh, and can you send it to Bush? ;)

Beth said...

There was something like this in a previous contest of Jason's. Scares the heck out of me. President with his head in this sand. RIGHT ON!

SzélsőFa said...

Eco-short, well done.
We need more of similar material.
Fiction - as of now. But will become non-fiction soon.

Chris Eldin said...

I usually don't like openings like this, but I really liked yours.
Well-written and masterful. Hopefully not prophetic.

The Anti-Wife said...

Nicely written and subliminally scarey.

Victor Bravo Monchego, Jr said...

What I like best about this is the voice; it sounds genuine, like you are the storyteller who experienced the scene. It's not haughty. Just a guy telling it like it was.

Ello - Ellen Oh said...

Great job and very scary.

Anonymous said...

Vivid scenes. The threat is building well even though it is not described in real time.