Content warning: none apply

The cemetery hasn’t had a volunteer headstone cleaner in a long time, so I’m surprised to see you.

You make your way over to my grave, a plastic bucket dangling from your hand, this rattling with the tools of your trade. Spray bottle, brushes. A pick. A scraper.

I’ve always enjoyed watching the process of headstone cleaning.

Crouching in the grass, you set to the quiet, rustling work of clearing grime from stone. But as you pick out my engraved death date, you pause.

You’ve seen what the others saw—a countdown.

One number ticks over.

Because I’m coming back.

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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.