Dark Days

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A little lizard sat motionless for hours on a sun-baked rock in a bleak corner of the Sahara desert. His sides expanded and contracted as he breathed in air as hot as a blast from hell. He flicked out his rough tongue, testing the air, biding his time till nightfall when he could go hunting.

Suddenly, the lizard detected a sound too low to be heard by human ears. He cowered under the rock in case some strange, fearsome predator was making that noise.

After a few seconds, the sound overhead crescendoed from a slight hum to a deafening rattle. The sound grew fainter and fainter, and then was gone.

The little lizard cautiously poked his head out and blinked his gummy eyes in the fierce midday light. For an instant, he stared up into the ruthlessly bright blue sky as the Sahara shimmered in the heat.

If he’d stuck his head out thirty seconds sooner, he’d have glimpsed something completely out of place in that corner of the world: a huge, yellow and white Sokol helicopter, with the faded logo of the AUTONOMOUS GOVERNMENT OF GALICIA painted on one side and a cargo net, filled with fuel drums, hanging from its underbelly. The pilot, a small guy in his forties, with a bushy, blond mustache, had a tired but determined look on his face; some fingers were missing from his right hand. In the copilot’s seat was a tall, thin man in his thirties with a scraggly beard and sharp features. His profoundly weary eyes stared blankly at the unfolding desert landscape, his mind very far away, as he slowly pet a large Persian cat asleep on his lap. Rounding out the odd group were an older woman and a teenaged girl sitting in the passengers’ seats.

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