Go To...

An Oasis of Amends

[ Read this in Dutch ]

flash SF story

They’re going to melt. Both of them, North and South. The question is: can we let them melt where a gazillion gallons of freshwater will do some good? 

Publication history

  • First published in Reckoning (December 21st, 2017)
  • To be reprinted in Little Blue Marble (forthcoming)
  • To be reprinted in Dutch translation in Edge.01 as Een Oase van Herstel (forthcoming)
Midnight on the Space Station Alcatraz

 

You should have seen this, Rowan.

From the observation platform on the converted oil rig, I watch the giant conveyor lift the chunks out of the ocean, see them climb to the coastal plain, see the freeway width of the belt disappear over the horizon, and feel like a Lego figurine in a life-sized industrial zone.

The solid wall of noise makes me sweat as much as the heat does. The shouting, the mechanical roar of the conveyor, the screaming crunch of the ice, and the shattering splashes of the chunks crashing back into the ocean make it hard to think. So I don’t think, but let the memory of you pervade me, a bittersweet sensation I love and dread.

×