Blood Oranges

This story was published by Crossed Genres in 2010 for their edition, "Science Fiction/Fantasy and Characters of Color." It is one of my favorite stories I've written. I hope you enjoy: http://crossedgenres.com/archives/024-charactersofcolor/blood-oranges-by-audrey-...



An excerpt:



From the top of Wind Cave trail, Catalina could see the permanent layer of smog over the Valley. The brown cloud, they called it. She suspected that some of the smog particles had been in the air above Phoenix, stagnant, stuck, for longer than she had been alive.

It was a beautiful late February morning, sunny and warm, but the trail was empty. That was the norm these days: people didn't go out much, didn't have much interest in natural pursuits. Catalina didn't mind. She liked hiking better without the crowds, anyway.

The Valley looked the same as ever, but it wasn't. The giveaway was the freeway, as empty as the trail, or near it; she spotted two cars for the whole hour she watched. Two cars. The last time she'd hiked, she'd seen four.

In the sky above her, two turkey vultures circled the mountain. A gecko sunned itself at the edge of the trail. The bright blue of the heavens gleamed so brightly that it looked like a Hollywood backdrop and not the Arizona sky. It was really too bad that everyone else was too dead to see it.









(For the curious, photos of Wind Cave trail: http://picasaweb.google.com/smiles1479/WindCaveTrail#slideshow/51704202360366077...)