A Wind Around the World

     On the other side of the world the last butterfly flaps its wings for the final time.
     At first it is just a breeze, a wind a little harsher than normal. Perhaps unseasonal, but certainly not unprecedented. No one thinks twice as they go about their days, umbrellas guarded from turning inside out, collars pulled high.
     It becomes a storm without precipitation, or at least it is not water in any form that falls from the sky. Leaves pulled before their time, twigs and pebbles become missiles hurled like words of warning that still no one heeds.
      No one hears the voice of the wind until it rises from a whisper to a roar, but by then it is far to late. When the first deaths come they are of people no one notices, no sees the absence or recognizes the significance. They were bodies without homes or shelter, but it is not long before boarded windows and high walls do little to protect those who have them. It becomes impossible to fly for both man and bird. Then too dangerous to walk the streets unshielded. Wheeled transportation sufficed for a moment until it too was no match for the wind now sweeping down streets like water raging in a riverbed. Skyscrapers bent and broke, wooden houses shattered into arrows piercing those unfortunate enough to be caught above ground. Oceans rose as ice caps melted and seas were stirred into a boiling frenzy. Deserts spread as sand danced across terra firma, nothing able to stay rooted before the onslaught.
     Humanity fled, burrowing deep, hiding in bunkers, fallout shelters and caves. And still the wind found them, scoured them out, till there were only a few, and then there were none.

     In the end it was a feeling more than a sound. Pressure that built in the ears, a rumbling that moved from the soles of the feet up the spine to stutter the heart in its cage of ribs. When the walls came down, they reached , one to another, strangers, friends, lovers, to hold outstretched hands. Brick and mortar fell to reveal a tidal wave of sand to wash away the world, wiping the planet clean.