Kismet
One day we’ll get the message to start packing our bags, scoop up our puppy and run for our lives. For now, this was happening on TV, but deep down we knew it was us losing everything. It was us huddling in a tunnel with our neighbors, building a fire and trying to find food. If we waited long enough, would someone rescue us? Would we ever be able to go home, resume our jobs, send our kids back to school? A woman next to us offered us some bread. Others had blankets they were willing to share. There is no end to our suffering.
The Prophet
There were years I couldn’t speak at all. You would visit, bringing all kinds of bread and cookies, stews and starfruit. I sat on my dais crying, hardly recognizing you, my dearest friend. Days rolled like this. Nights over yonder with the signs and symbols of beasts who also came to visit. I hardly expected the change in season: especially now that we were living in all seasons simultaneously, due to our recklessness, due to the fog we cherished. Meanwhile, you had been sounding the alarm—each time you came, you detailed the changes. You were deemed a false prophet, a puppeteer, because none of us wanted to hear it.
Roam
I conjure it and so it comes. Meanwhile, the statues stare at me, waiting for a timely answer. What will I say? Will I run? Of course, I will. You would too if you were being chased by lions who, however gorgeous, aren’t exactly friendly to humans. It seems increasingly my fellow countrymen don’t understand this logic, I write to my Canadian friend, to which he agrees: Yes, it seems your country’s become almost ungovernable, not to mention the number of guns. It’s everywhere—the melodrama, the question of the real, the feel of things increasingly tinny. But who am I to complain when I’ve had it so good for so long, I respond. Where shall I roam?
