The brooding dawn was a precursor, we should have listened to the traffic holding its breath, sky a tense diaphragm, throbbing, drenching the newscaster’s voice.
We should have prepared but we were preoccupied with illusions of normality.
Why didn’t we see it coming?
After all, there had been omens, the three-headed dogs, weather-suns, and the unusually warm October.
We always believed it would start with missiles or tanks, maybe even strange new diseases, We thought that preparing meant keeping good supplies of water and food, to have blankets and warm clothes.
But how can you prepare for this pestilence of mind, these recurring thoughts and virulent dreams?
I watched your fingers turn to claws, you saw the sharpness of my teeth.
I couldn’t understand the guttural grunts from your lips.
We turned beasts to each other, each one alone, as our last days began
Thiago Boecan
Back again from a normal vacation, I have now entered my new life of not working. I have made myself busy with brewing and baking, but I hope to write more going forward. Today Kim hosts prosery at dVerse, the prompt where we are challenged to write a piece of prose where we incorporate a phrase from a poem while keeping the length of the prose to 144 words.
Kim has chosen these lines:
‘Traffic holding its breath,
Sky a tense diaphragm’
From a poem ‘Twice Shy’ by Seamus Heaney.
Björn Rudbergs writings 
I really like this one. There is an air of mystery and yet it says quite a lot. I like the painting, too.
Thank you… it’s great to be back, and flash-fiction is something I really enjoy to do.
Me, too. Glad you’re back!
This is amazing 👌
Thank you
Great write. This part especially spoke to me,
“We always believed it would start with missiles or tanks, maybe even strange new diseases, We thought that preparing meant keeping good supplies of water and food, to have blankets and warm clothes.
But how can you prepare for this pestilence of mind, these recurring thoughts and virulent dreams?”
This could be interpreted as greed, hate, and self-centeredness creating a collapse. I like that you could interpret this more than one way.
Thank you…. I imagined the downfall of man in another way really (maybe it has already started)
It’s great to see you back, Björn, and congratulations on starting your new life of non-work. There’s a lot to be said for spending your days brewing, baking and writing. I so enjoyed your beastly fiction and the expert way you slipped the prompt lines into your own words. I love the omens and the ‘pestilence of mind’.
Thank you, I really enjoyed writing it…
About as perfect as perfect can be. You’re right, we just can’t know what form the end will take. The beast is great as literal or as metaphor. Would love to see you writing again at FF. Also Jenne Gray and CE Ayr, old regulars at FF have a weekly 250-word prompt each Friday.
We will see. It was a lot of fun with FF
I originally found it through you 🙂
So dark and ominous. Strong, vivid imagery and a greatly executed theme of looming disaster in this one. Your story hits close to home – so many parallels to our world as it is right no. Frightening.
A great piece of writing.
Thank you so much… it was fun to explore a dark theme like this.
The last three lines…..and that illustration that is just enough blurred that it could be an x-ray that shows something far too sinister than a normal spinal column in the person who had it. Sinister and dark, indeed.
I wanted to leave just enough for the reader to trigger dark or darker thoughts
A dreadfully good story, Bjorn. This is a wonderful line…
illusions of normality.
I think this is how most of us live…
We do tend to kid ourselves.
Yes we do.
Welcome back. Hope you had a nice vacation.
This one i find leans heavily to poetry rather than prose.
Much💖love
I think the line between poetry and prose is quite blurry.
Great to see you back, Björn, and a fab take on the poem prompt 🙌 (congratulations on a new phase in your life 😊)
It’s dark and paints quite the picture. My kind of writing, I really like it!
A true twist on the dystopian topic. You keep us curious for the reveal. Bravo. Cheers to more writing time and new chapters, Björn.
This is exactly how dystopia will come upon us, or we upon it… great writing Bjorn.
wow. This is disturbing. For a brief moment in the middle there, I thought it was about a relationship falling apart. That moment when the threads just start to unravel. It’s very evocative writing.
Welcome back Bjorn – So nice to read you again. The darkness is disturbing as it feels like the beginning of the end of life as we know it.
Wonderfully intense!
The end of it all? …. your prose is a warning, most will not heed. A great write, Bjorn.
Humans turning against each other will be the last straw that ends the race. There is no bigger predator than a human.