The Ball

Global Warming

'The ball… It used to have pretty colours. Why doesn't it have pretty colours anymore?'

That's what it asked her mom when she saw the picture of the liquid rock orb. In the school pod it was given pictures of a blue orb, smoke swirling around it, cocooned by a cracked green shell… but that's not what it sees now.

The sphere that is before it now is… furious, the life giver has now become an angry red light bellowing its rage to her brothers and sisters.

What used to be a lush green eggshell of a newborn chick, granting and taking life equally, has now turned to dust… nothing remains of its former glory.

Dust which is picked up by billowing clouds, that used to be wisps of smoke swirling, hiding the rare treasure it protects from view.

Heart shattered, they now cry out their anger at the destruction of what was once theirs by hurling the powdery carcass to the heavens.

'She loved her children… but they did not love her back.' the mother's heavy, shattered voice said.

'Why? Why would they kill their mama?'

'They forgot. They forgot who gave them life, who nurtured them with her own body, who protected them from the endless darkness. So they got greedy, and killed her slowly, bit by minis-cure bit. The children knew what they were doing, not only to their mother, but to their brothers and sisters. They killed them all, and then, they killed themselves.'

'… that's mean'