An occasional wooden jab meant to inspire footsteps.
But I'm numb now and the pain slips between the folds of my thoughts.
(An ephemeral thunder clap in the distance.)
Even the sounds surrounding me become a nearly inaudible murmur from some far off place.
Women weeping, children crying, false promises of hope from men who have lost the light of such ideas from their eyes.
(Thunder, sudden and fleeting.)
The paths we walked as children in better times now so unfamiliar.
Turned to mud by tears and stained with blood.
With waking eyes I see a thousand memories unfold before me in lucidity belying such verisimilitude that for a moment I feign to question the corporeal nature of these apparitions.
(The transient thunder again rings out.)
I involuntarily breathe deep the smells lingering on the crisp air of an autumn morning.
The smell of earth reminiscent of spring in the countryside.
A tenuous fog clings to the air, drifting in silence.
An acrid smell like smoke from a match pulls me from my reverie.
Solemn faces hastily filling a long shallow trench.
My thoughts grow quiet.
Led to the edge and forced to kneel.
Peering into the wretched abyss I see them.
The tortured faces of everyone I'll ever know.
Bodies contorted, sticking up from the dirt like discarded mannequins.
(Thunder.)
It's so quiet now.
Like a candle snuffed out under brass.
It's so quiet