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A Blaze of Glory
“I think it got smaller today too.” The owl said.
“As the day before that.” The fox answered, “And tomorrow it will happen again”
No one remembers how long ago it started. The Sun started getting smaller each day, out of nowhere. The humans were scared the first time they noticed. Even some of their scientists went into bunkers, saying the world would freeze and that everyone would die. Others were in denial; telling people that while this was real, it would take a long time for the sun to die out and that everything would be fine. After a few months of everyone living in fear, not much changed. Well, not for the humans anyway. But we could feel it. We could feel in different parts of the world, how they began getting colder and colder. Our families, the other animals, were slowly dying. The humans thought they were so smart, they built special burrows to protect some of their kind. It is impressive really, how they can adapt to survive. But even more impressive the way they think that just by ignoring a problem, it will go away.
“What if it doesn’t?” The owl asked frightened, “what if it just disappears and everything ends?”
“Then that was the way it was intended” The fox responded.
“The humans think it won’t come to an end.”
“They never see an end to anything.”
“How is that possible?”
“They think that they know everything. That they are superior. Even when a disaster is their fault, they try to get rid of the blame, saying that it their actions were ‘necessary’ for the greater good.”
“Do they even care what happens to the planet?”
“No, as long as they are comfortable, they don’t even care what happens outside their own burrows.”
The owl got silent for a moment. He turned his head backwards to a human city. Some buildings new and shiny, higher than the older, destroyed ones. Even they don’t care about their old homes.
“What will happen to them?” the owl asked.
“The same thing that will happen to us”
“You think they won’t survive?”
“No one will” The fox answered her “even they have to understand that. Their cities won’t save them when the planet freezes and all life goes away.”
“It could happen tomorrow.”
“It could.” Said the fox, laying down while he started to close his eyes “If it doesn’t, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” said the owl, who shivered a little, looked at the starless sky and then closed her eyes as well. “see you tomorrow.”
By:
Paola Juárez
Roberto de los Reyes
