Blood-red Sky/Soft Soil
Written March 05 2026
This story contains descriptions of nuclear war and suicide. If you feel like this might upset you, please do not read further.
I do not scare easily. I would consider myself well-adjusted, grounded; not stoic, but resilient. Recently, my dreams have been turning to darker matters. I dream of abandoned buildings, endless hallways, that twist and turn and stretch away into infinity, even as one walks along them. I have dreamed of monsters, wild animals or cryptic creatures. Sometimes they whisper sweet seductive sighs, other times they spew vile hatred, curses. Some just groan, as if in pain. The wolves only growl.
None of this scares me. Bogeyman may have scared me as a child, but I quickly realized that the underside of my bed was empty, that the dark hallway was only filled with darkness, that there was nothing there to be afraid of. And thought the monsters may have grown older too, grown warts and started rotting in their skin, they do not frighten me more just because of their adult visage. Two dreams I had, though, these past two nights, each before waking in a puddle of cold sweat, that shook me in a way that monsters have not been able to.
I stand in a square. Around me are building, tall, unimaginably so, though the square itself is rather small, and the buildings keep shifting around, moving unmooredly, growing and shrinking all the while. The sky is red as blood, streaked with long clouds of sinew and muscle. It opens wide, arches over the tiny theater, draping itself, seemingly, over the buildings. I crouch down and squat on the green. There is nothing else here, except for a nondescript bench. The grass is wet and cold; I pull back my hand. It pulses with hurt, close to frostbitten. Then, a sunken feeling. A weight pulling on my stomach. Hot glowing metal engulfing my brain. The horizon lights up, a flash so intense, it shines through the buildings. First, just this light. Then, the shockwave, dust and warm air. The sky reddens, blood bleeding. I pick up a single daisy and hold it between two fingers as everything slowly dissolves into dust.
In another time, another place, a forest. Shafts of light within the deep, clearings and clear-cuttings within thick stands of pines. Moss still wet from the morning dew, glittering in the late morning sun. We walk along a gravel path, up, only up, but gently. We carry a basket between us. A place that looks inviting, clear, soft, flat. We throw a blanket on the soft soil, settle down and open the basket, take out bread, fresh fruit and wine. We eat and drink and laugh, all the while the sun warms our backs. The birds are singing, always solitary, always far off in the distance somewhere. The other and I sit close, arms around each other’s shoulders, another blanket to keep us close and warm. The basket holds another thing. A small white bottle, unremarkable and unmarked. I open it. The other opens its hand. I drop the contents into it. Tablets, some twenty pieces. The rest—the same—I pour into mine. We look into each other’s faces, gently touch our heads and whisper into each other’s ears, feel the other’s warmth on our cheeks. Then we swallow them, all however-many, all at once. We pack everything back into the basket and lie down on our blanket. We mingle with each other, each caressing the other one, turn to the sky, arm in arm, two bodies in the warming sun. A denseness forms in our limbs, warm and heavy, and we look into each other’s eyes, drowsy now, as it rises to our heads. We stop moving and we’re warm and we’re with each other and the birds keep singing somewhere far away.