Where Kansas Used to Be

As Jake and Sarah drove east, she prayed they’d left soon enough. The earth still smelled of smoke, and ash coated the windshield. When the land died and the sand encroached, the city had held on ever more reliant on the highway arteries to keep it fed and watered. But with this last round of storms, she and Jake had sensed the permanence of the destruction. After four hours, they crested a hill, and she wailed with terror and mourning. Sand had swallowed the highway, and all they could see in the distance were dunes where Kansas used to be.