Hidayah looked out over the minefield, her sleeping 3-year-old son in her arms. Somehow she remembered there was a mine directly in front of her, and another just beyond that under a small stone. Beyond that, she had no idea.
Across the grassy field was the food distribution center, 100 meters and a hundred lifetimes away. The scent of gunpowder filled the air. A black Hejab over her hair and a matching Abayah that flowed from shoulders to feet protected her from the searing heat.
She desperately did not want to step into the field again. Perhaps it would be better to starve, to leave this world slowly rather than torn apart in a burst of fire.
Her trembling woke Mahdi. His emaciated body and distended belly shook violently in her arms as he cried from hunger. He would not last much longer.
She stared beyond the two mines she remembered from long ago and into the unknown, terror filling her beyond anything she had faced in this lifetime. She wasn't sure how she remembered the mines; she was certain she had never been to this minefield before.
She looked about, hopeful for a car tire, anything she could roll across the field to set off other mines. But there was nothing, and Mahdi could not wait.
She held tightly to her screaming child as she took several deep breaths. The first two steps were easy, over the first mine, and to the left of the small stone that marked the second mine.
She wanted to turn back. A slow, lingering death now seemed a beautiful thing. Trembling, she turned around.
Mahdi stopped crying and looked up. Their tearful eyes met.
"Mommy, I'm hungry."
She breathed deeply again, and most of the fear ebbed away. She turned back toward the field, staring at the stone on the ground as she did so. In her mind, she could see the ground beneath it explode, and feel the pain ripping through her the instant before death. Where did that memory come from? She looked ahead, wondering which parts held hidden death.
"We'll have something to eat in a few minutes," she said. "I promise."
A grin crossed his face. "Macaroni with cheese?"
Before she could think about it further, she took another step. Nothing happened. A slight smile crossed her face. Maybe they'd get lucky.
"Macaroni with cheese it is," she said.
She looked at a patch of bare earth just ahead. Once again, terror consumed her. Was a mine hidden below? Perhaps she should step to the side? Or was that where death waited?
Better to go straight ahead, one step at a time. She stared at the patch of bare earth, holding her breath.
She took another step.
The instant her foot hit the ground, she knew. She pulled back in terror. Then the explosion slammed into her, and she was helpless as it tore Mahdi from her grasp.
The agony lasted only an instant, an eternity as she and Mahdi were torn to pieces. What was left of them hit the ground a few seconds later.
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They were mostly forgotten in the weeks following their funeral, their deaths just two of many. The war continued to its inevitable conclusion.
More wars were fought with better and better weapons as human civilization advanced. Hundreds of years passed, then thousands. At some point, humans disappeared, whether by their own hand or some natural event nobody would know as there was nobody left to know. In humanity's absence, the animal and plant kingdoms took over the world. Millions of years passed. Strange new forms of life emerged. An intelligent species evolved from some sort of rodent, created a civilization, fought among themselves, and eventually disappeared.
The Sun's luminosity increased over the eons, and Earth became a hotter, dryer place. After half a billion years, all life died out. Five billion years after Hidayah's death, the Sun expanded into a red giant. Tidal interactions caused the Earth to fall into the inferno. The Sun eventually threw off its outer layers and formed a nebula, leaving behind a white dwarf.
Billions of years passed as the universe wound down and died.
And was reborn in an explosion of impossible fury. The universe expanded for 14 billion years as dust clouds coalesced into galaxies full of stars and planets. Intelligent life evolved on many worlds, including a watery planet circling a star near the edge of a galaxy. In a region of sand and hate, war broke out.
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Hidayah looked out over the minefield, her sleeping 3-year-old son in her arms. Somehow she remembered there was a mine directly in front of her, and another just beyond that, under a small stone.
And now she remembered a third, just beyond that, under a bare patch of earth.
Larry Hodges, of Germantown, Maryland, is an active member of SFWA and a graduate of the six-week 2006 Odyssey Writers' Workshop. He’s a full-time writer with more than 30 short story sales, three books and 1,100-plus published articles in more than 90 different publications. Visit his website: www.larryhodges.org.
Speculative Flash Fiction - Text and Audio
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