The Focus of Attention

Originally posted at Indies Unlimited.

The world went sideways for a moment; the sand under her feet fleeing like a skittish animal. Landing flat on her back, her breath knocked out in a surprised “Oomph!”

How long had she been wandering in this barren? She didn’t know, and that wasn’t the worst of it. There was the little matter of having no recollection of how she came to be here. Her last coherent memories involved walking home from Sarah’s house. That had been at night. In the falling snow. In Maine. A blinding light, and then this: nothing but sand in every direction.

The woman sits up, rubbing her back. This wasn’t the first earthquake. They happened with frightening regularity. With a grunt, she rises, and whisking off sand, gets moving. What else can she do? She ran out of tears miles ago, either due to dehydration or resignation.

She makes a small figure against the vast waste. Her passage leaving a meandering trail in the sand behind her.

***

“I’m not going to ask again. Get in here for dinner… Right now!”

With a sigh, Tommy sets aside the gift from his dad.

“You can play with your human-farm after we eat,” his mother says, giving him the stink eye.

He eats, but his mind is elsewhere. His thoughts keep returning to something he has seen human children do in the earth surveillance videos.

Something with a magnifying glass.