I had a dream last night.

The whole Midwest was a plain parched with thirst, its grasses crying out for rain. Wildfires raged, the buds of the earth too scorched to bloom. A muffled hunger moved through everyone I saw. Their stomachs ached for something other than the bread you once gave. A need to punish. And be punished.

Then came the tide of blood that consumed them all.

Cody Simpson is a lifelong resident of southeast Missouri. His work has previously appeared in The Cape Rock and The Bees Are Dead, among other venues.

Photo credit: By Annawhitney – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53144409