The Year Is 2563 [FICTOID]

Kenta tied her horse to the wreckage of the space station.

The ancient orbiting station slammed into the Earth a hundred and twenty-seven years earlier.  Now vines and tropical growth covered it, making its transformation complete.  No longer a mechanism of the evil ancients, it now provided a home for countless insects, birds, and small animals.

Kenta felt a tickle on her knuckle.  A bright red butterfly sat there.  She smiled, then very carefully so as not to startle it, stroked the finger of her other hand across its wings, coating her fingertip with red dust.

She rubbed the dust on her lips then looked at her horse with a pout, followed by a laugh.  “How’s my lipstick?” she asked.  “Isn’t that what the old newscasters would ask before they had an interview in their studio?”

“You look ridiculous,” said her horse, a genetically modified animal.

Most large animals were modified now, with either near human intelligence or hands with opposable thumbs.

But never both, the horse thought, resenting the edge the humans still held on his species and other terrestrial animals.  Just wait, one of these days we’ll assert ourselves and you can see what it feels like to be on the under side of the saddle.

Kenta let the butterfly flitter away.

“They’re spreading,” she said.  “That’s good.  The wider their distribution, the faster the planet will heal.”

Not as long as the main source of the contagion is still with us, the horse thought, but wisely said nothing.

After all, he had horse sense.

© Buzz Dixon