A Fever Dream

It’s August 7th, 2025 in East Texas. The 72nd day over 125 degrees, the radio says the high today is clocking in at 129 degrees fahrenheit. 

Everyday, I document the weather in my journal. This journal is going to be the best kept archived documentation of what’s happened since the incident. The incident changed everything. That’s how the whole world went to shit. I keep to myself, that’s how you survive these days. I stay locked in my apartment, blinds drawn and blankets nailed over the windows, to keep the sun’s radiation at bay. Looking outside for longer than three seconds will burn your eyes out of their sockets. 

I look around the apartment. This is my life now. A fever dream. Orange sunlight paints my walls, peeking behind the blanketed windows. My roach infested, sweat stained couch is the centerpiece of the place. That’s my resting quarters. I haven’t had a shower in a month, or hell, a change of clothes in three months. The thermostat needle is so far to the right, I don’t remember the last time I’d seen it left of ninety degrees. They usually don’t make em’ to measure one hundred degree indoor temps, do they?

Don’t ask me how this happened. I don't know. I got this battery powered Sony radio, but they don’t tell us nothing. I tune in to hear the weathermen bullshit me on the weather outside. You never could trust the media, especially these days. But we knew this would happen some day, right? All that talk about global warming, poisoning the oceans, trading nature for strip malls and two day shipping on a damn box of tissues. Mother Earth finally told us to go fuck ourselves and decided to burn us alive. 

I can’t even make a living anymore. We all rely on the government for food. Six cans of dog food and a half dozen bottles of water. And they expect us to be grateful for it and worship their feet. I’ve heard some people are eating their pets. Poor little Fido looked too damn tasty when you haven’t had a good meal in six months. I hear the homeless are eating each other too. I guess it’s easier when the Sun cooks you alive.

Also, I’ll alert you now. If you hear some banging or general movement behind that door, that’s my girlfriend, Ash. She’s been in the closet for a few hours now. You see, she’s got glaucoma. She can’t hardly stand the sunlight and heat. You wouldn't think the Sun could be so hard on the eyes, but even I see permanent spots now. Looking out the window is like making direct eye contact with a solar eclipse. I tried my best, with these blankets, but we gotta do what’s best for her. I personally think it’s hotter in the closet. Gets all musty breathing your own breath after a while, but that’s what she prefers. I want what’s best for her. I go in there to splash a little water on her and give her a couple bites from the can, that gets a little more fresh air for her. 

Was this inevitable? If I could time travel, is there anything I could do to stop this? No chance of that, not with the political machine. But I would try. It would take a geopolitical assassination of the head of state with the bright idea to launch nuclear bombs during the second act of global warming. Hell, this was a long time coming. All these so-called politicians who engaged in chemical warfare were the first ones to burn up from heat stroke. Joke’s on them, I guess? 

*KNOCK KNOCK*

Sweat beads fly off my brow as I swing my head around to the front door. That’s not a polite knock, that’s a police knock. It’s an authoritarian knock. It’s the knock that means if you don’t open, we’re knocking the door down to get you. I’m not doing anything, I don’t know anything. I involuntarily pace in circles, thinking about what to do. The gun. I march over to the closet where Ash is, that’s where I keep it, loaded on the top shelf above her head.

I open the closet door and see Ash sitting there, sleeping peacefully. Her auburn hair matted to the side of her scalp and covering most her face.The blindfold stayed on this time, the top half soaked in her sweat, the poor angel. The gag stayed intact too. I had to gag her, was making too much noise, she was going into hysterics and I just needed her to calm herself. If I don’t she really gets wound up and it’s for her best. I reach up and grab the lock box in the closet, get the key and unlock it. There’s my 9mm handgun, loaded just like I’d left it. I holster it in the back of my pants. I give Ash a kiss on her forehead, and she jerks back away from me. Poor thing, she’s just been through so much in all this.

*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK*

They knock again even more aggressively. Jesus Christ, give a man a couple seconds.

I lean forward to look in the peephole, unlocking the door chain and deadbolt when...

BAM!

I fly backwards as wood shards fly into my face. I land on my back, nearly knocking the wind out of me. These assholes bashed my door in. I blink and there’s five SWAT cops in my apartment, three of them with rifles aiming three darting lasers at my face, at what I believe is the center of my forehead.  

“What do you want from me? I didn’t do nothing!”

“Shut up asshole and stay right where I can see you,” says who I perceive as the leader of this band of donkeys. 

“Check every inch of this place.”

“What is this? A contraband check! I ain’t got nothing except for what the government sends me each week! Your cans of Alpo and 4 bottles of water to last us a week!”

“Who’s us?!”

“None of your FUCKING business!”

“I found her!” shouts one of the soldiers.

He kneels down and takes off her blindfold, revealing her raw and burned eyes. His gasp tells me he at least perceives the seriousness of her situation. 

“Looks like chemical burns,” the head soldier tells the other soldiers. “Call an ambulance and cuff him.”

“Don’t you touch her!” I move in Ash’s direction, reaching my arm out before... 

POP!

One of those sons of bitches shot me square through the palm of my hand. My left hand burns, it feels like motor oil flowing down my wrists. I bury my wounded hand against my stomach in the fetal position. As I turn to my side, they take the opportunity to flip me on my stomach and kneel in between my shoulder blades, squeezing the rest of the air out of my lungs. I hear Ash’s whimpers as they take her out of the closet.

“Ash! It’s going to be okay baby! It’s going to be okay! I won’t let them hurt you!”

They carry her out like a helpless infant. 

My wrists are handcuffed, tightened where it cuts off the circulation, which might save my bleeding left hand. 

“Don’t take off her blind fold! Don’t take it off! She’s got glaucoma, she can’t look at the Sun, she’ll go blind!”

Ashs’ weeping, stumbling over her words that sound like gibberish beneath her sobs as they leave the doorway outside. 

“You can’t do this! You can’t take us! You can’t take her from me! I can’t go outside. I can’t go outside! I won’t go outside! You will kill me!”

Against my will, I’m pulled out of the apartment. My feet scrape across the concrete in the apartment walkway. The skin tears with ice cold pain once we’re a few feet away from the doorway.

I’m trying to fight loose like a rabid dog. I stop to catch my breath and look around at my fellow apartment dwellers examining me outside their doors, satisfying their curiosity at the commotion. They stare at me like a hunted deer being dragged away from home. 

“Go back inside, save yourselves! Don’t come out here if you want to live!”

After bouncing down three flights of stairs we enter the apartment complex parking lot. A brisk, cool breeze covers my face. What the hell is this?

After squinting my eyes open, acclimating to the sunlight, I look around confused. The sky is blue, not a cloud in sight. Once my eyes adjust, I can see. Where’s the orange sun rays that radiated my apartment, the unbearable heat, the suffocating humidity? Birds are chirping in the oak tree near the park area. The parking lot is full of maintained, well kept cars. Not the vehicle wasteland it was last time I saw them. 

I look over to flashing lights, where there’s an ambulance, I see two men and a woman tending to Ash, a blanket over her shoulders. She’s being grilled by the police. In this light, she looks like a complete stranger, not my Ash.

Laughing children are in the distance behind me. I look behind at the community pool filled with children jumping and splashing while adults lay in the sun.

I don’t know what the hell is going on. 

Then I remember... 

I forgot to refill my meds last month.