| | |
| World of: Fire | |
| by Harry Leonard
| |
|
The sun sank lower in the sky than it ever had before.
Lael, with the silver-glittered, ruby hair, was the first to bring the fact to anyone's attention.
"Is everybody blind?" she asked softly from her perch, the marble bench in Park North. "Or am I seeing things?" She waited five seconds. There was no one around to reply. "Is everybody blind?" she screamed. "Because I'm not seeing things." Lael stood up on the bench. "We're all going to die!"
She'd suspected it for a long time, as long as she could remember, in fact. Until then, she'd never said a word about it to anyone. But then, the sun sank. The fact no one was around to hear was not the point. Lael was out to inform the world, her world, and she had to start somewhere. So she stepped down off the bench and left the otherwise vacant park.
Lael's reaction was natural enough for her. She did, after all, suspect the world was going to end. And all her life, the sun never set. It traced a circle across the sky each day and always kept a certain height above the horizon, until then, of course.
Lael, now on her mission of great importance, came across a fellow pedestrian as soon as she left the park boundary. The pedestrian was a gentleman in his late seventies; by far, the oldest living person she'd seen.
"I don't want you to have a heart-attack or go into shock or anything," she said, "but the sun is sinking, the world's going to end, and we're all going to die."
"Eh?"
"The world is ending," she said louder than before.
"What?" said the man.
"We're all going to die!" she shouted.
The man put a firm hand on her shoulder. "Get a hold of yourself, young lady."
"I have one," she said, still shouting.
"Young lady, I'm not deaf. Now, what's this about the end of the world?"
Lael shrugged the man's hand off her shoulder. She didn't like the feeling of him touching her. "Look how low the sun is. It's sinking." She pointed in the direction of the sun, just over the man's shoulder.
He shaded his eyes and turned to "see" what she was talking about. "Young lady, the sun is where it has been and where it always will be, relatively speaking. It's not," he chuckled, "sinking."
"Are you blind?!" she asked. "It's so obvious."
"I'm looking at the sun, and I'm telling you, it's where it's supposed to be."
"How many stars do you see?"
"Excuse me, young lady," he began to say as he turned back around. He only made it as far as "me."
Lael had lifted her top and now held the fabric to her chin, revealing her breasts and a number of glittering, half-inch, silver stars stuck various places.
The man, shocked to see the bare flesh so prominently displayed no more than a couple feet away, clutched at his chest and struggled to breathe as he sank slowly to his knees.
| |
|
Page 1 of 9
Next |
Prev |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9
Short Story Index
| |
| ©1997, 2000 Harry Leonard | |
|
