Art by Stuart Warren
quarterly
Fall 2022
Winner
Brahma Danda, or the Ten Second War
Starfish Prime Mach Two erupted over a void in the heavens—a mere field test, remote and secure. Yet the nuclear rainbows emitting from its emerald sphere had disturbed, to the naked eye, a mere pinpoint, a glimmer. Brahma woke from His hibernation. The glimmer swelled into a sun, a three-lobed burning eye, hurtling towards Earth like a sentient atomic glyph. Boiling seas and oceans engulfed the continents, whole mountain chains and cityscapes were uprooted, smoldering carcasses incinerated within cyclones of fire. Not even an ash remained. Brahma, relieved of vexation, turned over in his blanket of stars, and grumbled.