{"id":358,"date":"2023-08-09T01:12:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-09T01:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/?p=358"},"modified":"2024-02-22T02:34:07","modified_gmt":"2024-02-22T02:34:07","slug":"dream-wish-kaleidoscope-orions-belt-fiction-july-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/dream-wish-kaleidoscope-orions-belt-fiction-july-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Dream, Wish, Kaleidoscope (Orion’s Belt Fiction – July 2023)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

DREAM<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

T<\/strong>he obsessions of the father seep into the son. Juldeh was six years old when I first told him about monarch butterflies. By thirteen, he\u2019d read all the literature available on them in our dome at the end of the world. By fifteen, he\u2019d shared the same dreams as me; to bring the insects back, or, at least, we prayed, to get a glimpse of them before we died. At sixteen, he was diagnosed with cancer of the blood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WISH<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014I<\/strong>t gets dangerous. With the ice. And you want to risk your life over a scavenger\u2019s pipe dream?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014I\u2019m already dying, Dad. And I believe her. It makes sense the monarchs are coming back the same year we\u2019re seeing these big melts. It makes sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Big melts happen. Always. And nothing changes. There are no roads northwest, anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Roads for vehicles. I checked the maps. I can trek. I just need my shots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014It\u2019s illegal to leave the dome\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Let me see the damn angels before I die. Old man. Honour my last wish. I know what you\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Oh, shut up. Damn angels. You\u2019re no poet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We both laugh. I draw him close. He fell asleep in my arms that night\u2014I let myself cry. He\u2019s too young to die, too beautiful, my boy. To die, and to not have lived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

KALEIDOSCOPE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A<\/strong> kaleidoscope is an optical instrument that creates a psychedelic display of colours using mirrors. The collective noun for butterflies is kaleidoscope\u2014for the beautiful array of shades and patterns a cluster of their fluttering wings creates against a vivid sky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ice sheets break beneath us, father and son and stranger, all in woollen cloaks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A forgotten lake pulls us down into its memories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Dad!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Jul!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s the collective noun for an explosion of maybes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe I should\u2019ve never told Juldeh about all the insects our ice age killed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe I should\u2019ve never given him that book on monarch migration, or played him the last surviving videos of their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe I should\u2019ve never let my obsession seep into him, like sunlight, like poison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe I should\u2019ve said no to his dying wish, and never snuck out with him through the blue veil of night in search of butterflies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe I should\u2019ve told him monarchs are unlikely to fly in these temperatures, and be more of a scientist and less of a father grieving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe I should\u2019ve told him some dreams are better left unsought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe, then, the last months of his life would\u2019ve been peaceful. Maybe, then, we would\u2019ve spent so long on the couch watching his favourite cartoons. Maybe, old friends would\u2019ve stopped by. Maybe his mother would\u2019ve called from the other end of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orange wings against white sky. Kaleidoscope. Butterflies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They hate the cold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We shiver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe we saw the monarchs before we died. Maybe it was worth it. Maybe it was worth it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014It\u2019s freezing, Dad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Hold on to me. I can\u2026can\u2026swim\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Dad, look, look. They are so beautiful. Old man. Do you see them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Forna<\/strong> is a Sierra Leonean writer based in his country\u2019s capital Freetown. His short fiction and poetry have been published or are forthcoming in homes such as Fantasy Magazine, PodCastle, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere. He is an alumnus of the 2022 AKO Caine Prize Writing Workshop. You can find him on twitter @vforna12.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DREAM The obsessions of the father seep into the son. Juldeh was six years old when I first told him about monarch butterflies. By thirteen, he\u2019d read all the literature available on them in our dome at the end of the world. By fifteen, he\u2019d shared the same dreams as me; to bring the insects […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","ph_site_tiers_settings":[[{"Price":"1.00","Tier_name":"Voyager","Tier_id":"prod_PbejBstAbzGx6D","Selected":true,"Tier_status":"publish"},{"Price":"2.00","Tier_name":"Pioneer","Tier_id":"prod_Pbekxd4dT46vIU","Selected":true,"Tier_status":"publish"},{"Price":"5.00","Tier_name":"Cosmonaut","Tier_id":"prod_PbenhwsNUd6XSB","Selected":true,"Tier_status":"publish"}]],"_ph_post_tiers":["prod_PbejBstAbzGx6D","prod_Pbekxd4dT46vIU","prod_PbenhwsNUd6XSB"],"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":359,"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358\/revisions\/359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/on.patronhunt.com\/orionsbeltmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}