The empty skyscrapers surrounding the harbour are always completely lit towards late evening. Tonight it is different. Oh, the towers are still torches in the sky, but there are people in them. They stand, row by row, clearly visible from outside, toy soldiers lining the shelves. They stand close to the glass, so close that it fogs, because they’re so cold on the inside and it’s burning, yes, it’s burning outside. The steamers near the shore are alight, the frigates are on fire and the trawlers are turning to ashes like the heroes commemorated on the melting metal memorials in the quayside fountains.
The politicians, the pundits, the preachers – oh, they said it would never happen. It happened. It happened. A terrible terrifying terrific catastrophe and they said it wouldn’t happen but it did happen, it did! The rivers are steaming, the land is dying, and the blue above is empty. Spin in a circle in a desert and craters surround you. Rocks on fire are falling from the sky. Trees are skeletal like idle spiders. Sheep lay dead on the fields in their rotting thousands. A lone shepherd walks broken through their broken ranks and kneels and weeps. A collective sigh of souls leaves the Earth to float towards another corrupted, make-believe realm beyond our imagining.
Or is this a daydream?
