The Sky's Clotted Blood

The colors were screaming at her. They screamed, they floated and blurred and swirled together while all at once being so distinct and separate that her eyes burned from looking at them all at once.

Still, she did not look away. She would have stood, transfixed, for longer, but-

“Rose Warner.”

The women's voice was not angry, simply strict and unsurprised.

Rose swallowed dryly, and licked her lips before turning around. She had not noticed how shallow she had been breathing. 

The tall woman that stood before her now was not nearly as exciting to look at. Her colors were dull, skin so pale it was nearly transparent and hair the color of washed out copper pulled back into a tight bun. Mrs. Kever had announced at the beginning of the school year that she was only twenty six, but the lines on her face suggested otherwize. She wore a gray uniform, like Rose did, like everyone did.

The only thing remotely interesting about her was her eyes. They were deep and clear, and reminded Rose of a color…

Rose turned back to the picture on the wall. Yes, there it was. 

Blue. Wonderful blue, so deep and light. The color the sky used to be. 

She heard a sigh behind her, and Mrs. Kever stepped forward, crouching beside her.

“Rose, the rest of the class is waiting in the next room. You need to be-”

“Did the sky really look like this? People didn’t put a filter over the picture, or anything?”

Mrs. Kever paused, taken by surprise. She spared a glance at the picture. 

“Well,” she said, slowly, tasting her words before speaking them, “this museum is dedicated to showing us what the world used to look like, long ago, so… yes, I suppose it must have.”

Rose had so many questions. 

“How could people focus with the sky like that? I mean, they would always be walking looking up! Did it always look like this? What if-”

Mrs. Kever, relieved to finally have a question she could answer, cut in. 

“Well, no. Usually it was just blue. This is the sky at sunset.” She pointed at a label on the wall. 

Rose mouthed the word sunset, her eyes fixed on the picture. It was big, a whole two feet in height and width. It hovered just above the ten year old’s head. Her eyes weren't big enough for it. Across the picture, a great deep swath of blue sliced, hugged close by lighter purple that became almost white until magically (for the girl could not see this happening without magic) bursting into orange, brilliant orange, orange that called to her and almost made her forget to drop her eyes lower. 

But she did not forget, and her eyes once again paused on the reason for it all, the yellow hole that burned in the ancient sky. 

Sun. She mouthed that now, yearning a bitter taste in her mouth. 

“Ready, Rose?”

 Rose didn’t want to go. She wanted to count the colors until they swallowed her. But her teacher gently grabbed her hand and she went. 

Snatched away from the sunset, Rose got only a glimpse at the rest of the room before she was in a gray concrete hallway, walls dripping with burning color. 

“Wait!” Despair stopped her, stalled her, “I didn’t get to the other pictures!”

Mrs. Kever sighed. She was an adult, and although she truly did care for the children in her care, she did not understand Rose's concern. She shook her head, convinced not that the girl, usually so quiet, was being difficult on purpose. 

“Rose, come,” She said, her voice grating. She grabbed Rose's forearm and ignored the big brown eyes that begged to turn back as she pulled the girl along. 

Although she was indeed a quiet kid and would one day be a quiet adult, make no mistake; Rose was no sheep. She had her own mind, a dangerous mind, something that she often kept to herself but in instances such as this she would show everyone, and the unexpecting Mrs. Kever was one of the first to find this out. 

“NO!”

Rose, although smart, was not yet practiced in speaking her mind, so in this situation, she used her body  to communicate. She pulled and shouted and eventually went completely limp, until a very angry and somewhat disheveled Mrs. Kever was forced to drag the stubborn body all the way back to the bus; angrily informing the girl that she would not be permitted to see the rest of the History Museum when she was acting like this. As we can expect, this only made the girl yell protest louder. 

Back on the bus, Rose finally slumped defeated onto the seat. White tears burned her eyes. The back of the burley bus driver was facing her, tapping his fingers impatiently, baseball cap facing forward.  He occasionally glanced in irritation at the girl to make sure she was behaving, his mouth twitching grimly at the sight of her. He had planned on taking a smoke break, but now he was on babysitting duty. Typical. 

Rose sat still, forehead to the cool window pane. She stared first at the buildings and sidewalks around her, taking in the gray. Gray concrete walls, gray concrete sidewalks, lifeless cement laying in uniform stiffness. 

Finally, her heart cramping, she looked up. 

High above her she saw the suffocated atmosphere she had known her whole life. The gray smog of smudged charcoal looked heavy, a great burden that had been gifted to her by her ancestors when they choked the sun, when the blue was wrung out of it by billions of desperate, ignorant hands. Back then, deceiving clouds made of fire and ash had filled the sky, determining many human fates that were counted and reported, while the Earth, knowing better, quietly named losses that the humans did not.

That day, her eyes the color of quiet anger that only a child could know, Rose found words that would change her future. Words that she would speak when she was ready and a young confident woman would stand before a crowd the color of the fake sky, the sun burning bitter on her tongue, prepared to light a spark under the comfortable backsides of thousands. Those words were this. 

This sky is not Earth's Sky. 

This sky is Man’s Sky. 

And man, that thief that dusts the earth… man robbed us of the Sky, until we forgot her face.  

Now, it is Man who must bring her back.