In the Red Zone

October 1981

Prologue:

Concerning Violence

The earth fell on the earth. It looked like cloud

but it was dirt: the planet turning on itself.

Rock, slag, dust, earthgas, earthfire, earthwork.

A column of boiling stone. Ponderous.

From a distance thunderblue, but in itself earthdark,

grey, brown, black: a mountain inside out.

And the lightning struck, and struck, and struck.

Dancing like a hopjack strung up on the groundcloud,

the stoneplume, jagging between earth and earth,

the lightning struck, and struck, and struck.

The forest was dead in the first five minutes.

© 1983 by Ursula K. Le Guin

Reprinted with permission.