It was only a dream, at least that’s what they told me, but I don’t believe a word of it.

I was just walking and it was just a normal day except normally it doesn’t rain like this, like for days the clouds have nothing better to do than drown us all, not normally. I was only walking and I’m no one special so why was it mine even if it was a dream? I’m a stranger to politics and I can’t save the world, and really I don’t even really want to because what’s the point?—if the world wants to end it will.

But really what made me notice it in the first place was the rain, because it never rains like this, for so long and so dreary like the clouds have nothing better to do, and then the rain stung a little and I was curious but I didn’t look up. I was curious but I didn’t look up, because I didn’t want any to get in my eyes, so instead I looked down and saw an anthill, all soaking wet like a puddle instead of a hill, and the ants were just pouring out. At first I thought they were chocolate sprinkles which was odd, but then I realized they were ants and they were pouring out of the ant puddle and I couldn’t figure why, and I moved so they didn’t climb up my shoes and I watched them until I didn’t want to and then kept walking.

I scuffed my shoes in the dirt and a cloud of it puffed up and trickled through the raindrops like smoke through trees, and I wondered why it wasn’t mud. Five-day rain should make five-day mud, but dirt it was and dirt it remained. Little drops split-splatted and rolled right off and dirt was dirt and I looked but I couldn’t find any mud, which was strange, and I thought about finding a policeman because someone was breaking the laws of nature and then the quake began and I forgot.

Because suddenly the sky began to quake, which is why I won’t call it an earthquake, but I can’t call it a sky quake because there’s no such thing, especially if the whole thing was a dream, so I’ll just call it quakes. The quakes didn’t shake the ground and they didn’t knock me off my feet, but I felt a little dizzy because the entire sky was shaking and my eyes couldn’t follow it all. I forgot not to look up and the stinging rain got into my eyes and they watered. The sky shook and then it got dark and then it started to get lighter, and I realized the clouds were being pulled apart and the sun was breaking through and the rain was even ending but not quite entirely so there was a rainbow, but it was in grayscale and I wondered whether it was the light or the rain that made the rainbow in grayscale, or maybe it was my eyes, maybe it was the stinging rain in my eyes.

The sky shook and quaked and I worried a little that something might go wrong, and the sky cracked and the eggshell cracks looked like lightning, and then the sun went tumbling down and the world went dark, and then everything burst into beautiful terrible flame.