Ten Windows

You find yourself stranded on a thawing block of ice in the arctic. You can’t remember how you got here, but a polar bear and its cub are approaching from a distance. As they get closer you notice your vision starting to close in, a funnel of darkness kaleidoscopes around you. You’re struggling to breathe, to get enough air. 

*

The heat is lifting you higher and higher as you sit in the thatched basket of a hot air balloon. Everywhere below you the water is rising. As you look down, you find yourself on the roof of a single story house. The sun is setting a pink cotton haze and in your hand, you hold a red balloon—its weight effortless against the heavy forces of the tide. Suddenly you remember that your wallet is in the truck by the porch. You decide to go look for it, but the truck is taking on water. You try the doors but they are locked. 

*

You grow tired as you stand in a long line in a dark city. It has just rained, and the blacktop is glistening like wet obsidian. Everyone in line is wearing masks, but they can’t breathe. With them they carry empty containers to fill with water. The man in front of you tells you he is your father. He tells you to fill your container with enough water for the week, but the line isn’t moving. Everyone is thirsty and getting irritable. The sky opens but nothing comes out. 

*

You’re driving in a white truck down a road in the mountains. Smoke is drifting in on a hot breeze and the sky is darkening to a shade of heavy graphite. In the truck with you is a firefighter, but he’s never seen fire before. You head deeper into the charcoal painting, the trees like burnt matchsticks. The road is getting hotter and the tires are starting to melt. You see that the road is lifting into the sky. You look to the passenger seat, but the firefighter is gone. 

*

In an empty red room with no doors, you find an elephant standing on a small globe. You realize that you’ve forgotten to feed the elephant, but it’s too late. North America has started to glow a neon yellow. The continent is starving. The yellow is spreading south, but the ocean is too bruised and purple. 

*

You meet a boy in a yellow raincoat.  He has sad eyes, but he tells you where you can find water. You learn that his eyes hold the suffering of the world. He takes you to a vernal pool, but it’s empty. It only fills once in a generation. You decide to look for water in the next town over. 

*

Below you, everything is barren, devoid of life. You’re orbiting the earth in a homemade satellite. Everyone that has ever lived has left the planet. You can’t figure out how to fly the satellite and soon you learn that there’s a small leak in one of the panels. It’s getting harder and harder to breathe. You try to seal the panels with duct tape, but it doesn’t hold.  You sit next to the air unit trying to breathe in the last of the air. 

*

An ephemeral guide is walking you through a golden field. He’s taking you to the Tree of Seasons. The left side of the tree shows spring and summer, monarchs migrating on a hot wind. You breathe in deep, life and light. The guide points to the right side of the canopy. The tree has lost its leaves, a cloud of birds in a darkened sky—descending into winter. You feel a cold shift in the wind, the rain turns to snow, and when you look for the guide, there is only a night sky. 

*

On the beach, you press your feet into black sand. The overcast ocean waves to you in blues and greens. You see a girl in the distance. She’s wearing a white dress. When you get closer, you see that her hair carries the color of the ocean. She is building a house out of plastic bottles. You ask her 

if she is lost—she tells you this is where she lives. Her dress fizzles in the white water of change. When you ask her if she is okay, her house is washed away in a wave. 

*

Outside, the air has become light and green. Visions of thistle call to you. Your yellow and black body buzzes while you slowly float towards a taste of lavender. You try to drink the nectar, but there is nothing left. This is the last flower, your only chance at food. You keep drawing, sucking, but nothing comes out. 

Eli Coyle received his MA in English from California State University-Chico and is currently a MFA candidate at the University of Nevada-Reno. His poetry has recently been published or is forthcoming in Barely South Review, California Quarterly, Caustic Frolic, The Normal School, New York Quarterly, Hoxie Gorge Review, The South Carolina Review, and Camas among others.