A thump sounded beside me as an object landed in the springy moss along the dirt path where I walked. Following its trajectory, I figured it had come from a house crowding this side of the walkway; a lacy curtain stirred in a high open window, but no light filtered from within. There was no one in sight.

In the moss at my feet, a pale, stone heart reflected the moonlight. Someone had thrown it from the window above, cast it aside as worthless. Studying the heart, I disagreed. Though dings and dents marred its smooth surface, this heart had never broken, not even with this most recent fall. A brass key and padlock hung from the top by a strip of white ribbon, the key elegantly wrought, the padlock plain.

I crouched down, my outstretched fingers hovering just over the heart. I pitied its fate, thrown away like this.

The moment dragged out. But then I curled my empty hand closed and straightened. Stepping around the heart, I continued on my way, footsteps whispering in the moss. The heart had never broken, I realized, because the owner had never unlocked it for anyone.

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Summer’s Latest

Little Blue Marble 2022: Warmer Worlds

Featuring “I Hope This Email Does Not Find You!”

The last eight years have been the warmest on record.

Little Blue Marble‘s anthology of speculative climate fiction and poetry from an international slate of authors mourns and hopes in equal measure for the fate of our world and its ecosystems.

May these visions of the future inspire collective action before climate chaos becomes irreversible.