“Rising with the Seas,” a Story by Faculty Member Sarah Stone

FIRST COME THE FIRES, the neglected grid breaking down and sparking the dry fields. Next a week of clouds, so dark, so heavy, like nothing we’ve ever seen. Methuselah’s death has put all the humans in a panic. They miscounted the days; they thought the rains would start later, much later, or perhaps would never come. The future is here; this is that very moment. I run down the streets, looking for my sister, my twin, Azy, who’s broken out of our pen again. Restless Azy, perfect in a way I have never wanted to be. I am always afraid for her.

The humans laugh and point: A goat, a goat! She’s running away! Catch her!

I’m faster than all of them.

In the deep shadows of the ark—that pitchy, longstanding joke, Noah’s great gopher-wood folly—stands a woman dressed as fire, her crown blazing, her skirts full of lights, posed in front of a giant pumpkin stuffed with bones, her two little firefighters beside her in full uniform. It’s our last Halloween, and the neighborhood is full of wild children on sugar highs screaming in the dark playgrounds and men in masks, their hyper-realistic chainsaws revved. Everyone photographs everyone else, for the time when it’s all gone.

Though I find Azy, as I always do, there’s no safety out here: Noah’s children grab us and pull us into their mad project. These are not our humans, not the children we played with, not Sarita who fed us, photographed Azy, put us to bed at night. We will not see Sarita or her children again.

Read the rest of the story on the IMAGE JOURNAL’s website.