By Mercedes Lawry
We were dreamers so the apocalypse did not stop us in our tracks. We still found beauty in the small rivulet offshoots of a toxic river where the water still sparkled and churned. We were not unmoved by the loss of the bees or the red squirrels or the conifers. The world was unfolding and we were privileged to watch. There was still wonder. The darkness about to overcome us was inevitable. We’d known we’d contributed to the great ruin and we took responsibility but we refused to gnash our teeth or beat ourselves or each other. There’d been years of that to no avail. We were open to the idea of a new world, a reborn world, even if we would not be part of it. We were here to say goodbye, to watch the last wings fall from emaciated birds, the last great storm wash out a coastal community. End times, our grandmothers used to say. We opened our arms.
Mercedes Lawry has published short fiction in several journals including, Gravel, Cleaver, Garbanzo, Pithead Chapel and Blotterature and was a semi-finalist in The Best Small Fictions 2016. She’s published poetry in journals such as Poetry, Nimrod, & Prairie Schooner and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize six times. In 2018, she won the WaterSedge Poetry Chapbook contest judged by Molly Peacock. That book, “In the Early Garden With Reason” is available on Amazon. Additionally, she’s published stories and poems for children. She lives in Seattle.
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