A Land Despoiled, a short story for you. This one would be labelled ‘Sci-Fi’ or possibly ‘Dystopian fiction’, but I see it as the fruit of my imagination on passing through an area entirely dominated by the acid yellow flowers of oil seed rape.

A Land Despoiled

No one had been this far south for a decade. His trip of desperation was hope for those still living in the cooler north.

‘Nothing but GM oilseed rape, as far as the eye can see.’

‘Height and location?’

He told them, sneezing and coughing as the pungent odour punished nose and throat even two hundred metres up.

‘Wildlife?’

‘Bees. Adapted birds. Flying crickets.’

‘Trees?’

‘Dead or dying.’

‘Anything green?’

‘Acid yellow to every horizon.’

‘People?’

‘One small camp, scavengers.’

‘Return now. Storm approaching from Atlantic. Your location under three hours.’

Southwest, black billows pushed blue sky. Directing power exclusively to the prop gave his solar-powered microlite a chance to outstrip the weather. If not, three-hundred-kilometre winds would rip it and him to shreds.

Below, unbroken brimstone passed. Even riverbeds and dried up lakes sported the ubiquitous plant. Four hundred kilometres north, occasional rain let specially cloned goats exist on parched pastures. But continuing drought seared the land below. When the flowers died, smoke from lightening fires would carry dust and pollen mix afar.

West, dark scars marked Birmingham, realm of criminals and outcasts since the Great Starvation. He tacked east, glanced behind at building clouds.

Red flashed in his visor. He risked power to learn the message. ‘Seventy minutes at most.’

‘Estimate sixty-seven to bunker.’ He switched back to the props and hoped cloud wouldn’t obscure the sun.

Ahead, Doncaster burned, smoke soaring high and thick. He veered east, keeping sunlight on his power cells.

Wind buffeted him above the Savage Zone, where renegades took pot-shots. Cloud patched sunlight, dropping power and subjecting him to fitful gusts. Skill and willpower drove him on, and he crossed the tidal mudflats surrounding sunken York. As the sun vanished behind black clouds, the Howardian Hills rose up to meet him and the base, with bunker doors ajar for him, hove into view two kilometres north. He jettisoned his protective shell to lessen weight. Unclipped landing wheels, dropped them down to fighting scavengers. Ditched cameras and recorders, data safe on pocketed disc.

Across the high electric fence, power reached for him. The brown slope of the hill rushed up to him. Uniformed figures stood by doors, as fitful wind lifted him thirty metres, then dropped him like trash. He swivelled wings to break the fall, unstrapping himself as he rushed to meet the ground. A forward roll reduced impact, and he stumbled the last few metres despite a dislocated shoulder.

Hands dragged him through closing doors battered by the wrecked craft as the dry storm hit.

A medic relocated his shoulder, helped him into fatigues, then strapped his arm into immobility. ‘Good work.’

The Committee faced him. ‘When can we return?’

‘I gazed down on that desert and saw why they called that stuff Rape. Millions of hectares glowing bilious yellow. We can never go back.’

I welcome your comments, which can be easily placed at the foot of this post.