What Good Can Come?

Afterward, the night was etched with dreams and multiple wakings to the shadows of dreams. His mind’s turbulences tore asunder any possible reckoning with the quietude of darkness and all he heard he had heard before and would hear again, the plaintiff echoes of the disappearing creatures from all his scorched-earth imaginings made manifest: all flying things from the firmament, all walking things from the earth, and all swimming things from the seas. He sees the last mother bear, the last soaring eagle, and the last mourning whale and wonders, what good have we done here? What good can come?

Inspired by Loup. Illustration by Fred Ni.