In honor of spring, here's a short story from last April that I never finished.

Late Spring

When celestial engineers seized control of the earth's axis, interrupting the southern hemisphere's return from winter, it was lauded by leaders as a great decision. They froze the earth's spin a perfect distance from the sun, suspending the northern half of the globe in a ripe, eternal spring. Young people bathed in the soft sun and cool wind, swimmers luxuriated in blue water under a clear sky. Humans below the equator were not informed — they would wake blearily and pull back the curtains to check for the first sunny day of the year. It never came.

My colleagues and I felt alien to the engineers and their methods — we were not "technical", in a way that mattered to people that matter — we had no understanding of the construction or birth of this new reality, but we welcomed it. Who doesn't love the spring. I woke on the 62nd of New Spring (use of the Gregorian calendar was discontinued) and gathered my things for a trip to the lake. My wife, asleep, would not be coming with me this morning — she began experiencing blistering headaches around the twentieth or thirtieth day of New Spring and has been spending a lot of time in bed. Probably allergies. I passed through the front threshold of my house, left ajar since Sunday night. My neighbors are strewn across their roofs and front lawns, eating fruit and sleeping in the sun. Every window and door of every house is flung open. Garbage cans up and down the street are overflowing with food scraps and empty wine bottles — maintenance workers are hard to come by these days, and custodial drone pickups are an unfinished solution with an irregular schedule. I retrieve a pair of sunglasses from my car, which has been stationary in the driveway since the day gas stations were closed. All non-renewable energy sources were repossessed to power the geopause. I hesitate to take out my bicycle — they're worth more than cars nowadays, and I don't want to attract undue attention.

Pretty mid, huh? But maybe I'll flesh it out one day.