The air is rancid here and the sky is dead.
All the green is gone here.
Nothing but grey and black and white.
I am still young but I know this is wrong.
There is a few of us left.
We are children.
We wander this barren land searching for nothing;
Cursed by our parents who burned the sky and the land.

A man appears before us;
High on a throne of stone.
He wears a grey robe that covers his body.
His face is plastic and pure white.
It is friendly and smiles at us.
The other children can’t or refuse to see the horns above,
They are small but sinister.
His long, grey hair helps to hide them
But also contrasts the paleness of his face.
He extends his hands.
One is pale white and stiff,
The other is scaly and green.

He speaks to us
In a voice that reminds me of my mother.
The other children fall for the comforting sound.
They move toward him.
I take a step back.
His fierce dead eyes lock onto mine.
He tells us a story,
A story about the future.
But I’ve heard this tale already,
It is the past that my parents spoke of before they passed.

He holds out a paper in one hand and a pen in the other.
He tells us we can build the future.
The future that he wants.
But I know better than to trust the man.
The man sitting in the throne of cold and death,
The man with the fake pale face,
The man with the horns and a plan,
The man with the pen and paper.
I see his future.
It is already before us;
Empty,
Cold, and dead.