Aircrash

“Dear diary, today nothing awful happened.”

Days we can say that are okay days. Days like today when the worst that happened was the squabbling of ravens in the treetops. Unlike yesterday when a sound from behind Wolf Mountain momentarily quickened your heart beat. The sensation of something staggering to its feet… and selecting. Targeting. Glitching.

Your mother, boarding, grips your hand, like she knows.

You recall all this, the world’s contrasts:

Fruit stands in a scorched land where even the...