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Short fiction: A man and his mother simply wait as persistent pain eats away at his body

Scroll | June 5, 2026 10:39 PM CST

As the sky opened its eye, Umed emerged from a deafening dreamscape to the silence of the morning around him. Earlier, it would have been a relief to wake up. Earlier he would have worried about what the visions might portend. But in the past few years he had begun to savour the adventure and excitement his nightmares offered as the unchanging nature of his life had lulled his anxieties. He knew the details would slip away soon, so he closed his eyes again to recollect them.

He was looking down at terraced fields of jet-black crop that swayed ever so slightly. A white gleaming path wound around the fields, forming a sort of maze – his dreams were usually in black and white. Ija was in the fields trying to ask him something, but all he could hear was the faint whisperings of the crop. His sister was calling out to Ija from the other end of the fields. He looked up to see a thick sheet of water rolling down towards them from the top of a mountain, making a loud grating sound … or was that from another dream … he was not sure. They needed to run,...