The city looms in wheezing death throes. A cloud of steam like a goddess born from the thrashing of flames and torrent of flood. They wait, the water eddying past their knees.

They came from everywhere searching for what everyone searched. They had no homes, no past, and the future was empty, an endless shroud of night. The present was theirs and they horded as much of it in their tiny hands as possible. There was no leader, but a collective identity arose, bound by their plight and their will, each individual’s life twined with another and another until they formed an unbreakable rope with each person a strand that formed the consciousness of the mass. Nameless, ageless nomads prowling and preying on those who clung to the past or future, they sprouted everywhere like weeds and their seed spread quick and their terrorism stormed.

The ash of the city snowed on their smiles and their cold eyes. Ravaged and torn, the city was empty, nameless, the past erased in a pyre, no more. They turned and followed the wherever the road led them. €Sometimes north, sometimes south, they wandered like a snake over the countryside, blind, but catching the flickering scents of the trails of man. The Raiders plunged after it with reckless abandon. Their numbers always increasing, their will growing ever stronger, they became the plight and the dream of a broken america.

***

There is no moon to shine. Nor stars to flicker. There are no clouds. The sky is clear. It is free, as it was meant to be. And so too are we.

The names all died one way or another. They always do. New ones have been forged. Some better than others, for no one makes their own. Names are given, not taken.

The road stretches forever. Deeper into the darkness. No reprieve. We travel until we travel no more. Every city is a meadow and we are the plague of locusts. If god still lives, he’d choose no fitter ending for us. There is no yesterday and there will be no tomorrow. Everything is now. And now is this road beneath this pristine blackout.

Slash holds fractured sheet metal forged into a wooden handle that he calls a sword. He asks me when we’ll stop again. When my blood dries. I tell him not until sunrise. He nods in acquiescence. I cannot make out his face, but I can hear it stumble, his lip upturn, confused, then nodding once more unsure if I joke or not. Sleep. We do not sleep anymore. But they, they all sleep, dreaming of the life they had. They dream until we’re at their door. They dream until their throats are sore from screaming. They dream and dream and dream, but they will no more.

Savage, brutish, and short. A constant state of war. These words once meant something. A mantra to the basest of human instincts. The bottom of the pillar. The lowest wrung. We were meant to elevate from.
Now, now they truly are.

I used to dream of a daughter with hair of gold running through daffodils. The wind, cold, blowing her hair like smoke. I had a wife when I closed my eyes. She whispered love rhymes to me. I held her hand. She was mine and I hers. The sun shined and never set. I dreamed of rolling waves and long green hills. The grass danced. Each strand waltzing to the music of summer skies. I carried my daughter over streams and through forests. My wife a step ahead. She sang. I can still see her dress billowed behind her. The elegant steps. The drifting fragrance. When I closed my eyes, the world was perfect.

Dreams fall apart and wash away. Blown out like a candle, the flicker too shallow.

We crowd around the pyre. The flames leap into the firmament. Roaring as if the great beasts still wandered. The drumming begins. Deep and tumultuous. A riot of notes thrust in place of starlight. Each face is a mask. A mask that history forgot. Scarecrow smiles and jackolantern jubilation. They’re happy for today.
Tomorrow’s already forgotten, but they smile anyway.

There are times when the sky falls. Fragmented and collapsed. It touches our eyelashes like snow and we squint through.

The beat changes shape. A great dragon ripping through the sky, surging through the ground, vibrating into each and every one of us. We’re bound. The dragon is a maelstrom of desire and it dances into us, connecting the cadence of our disparate hearts, uniting us under and unblinking shadow.

The girls rise to dance. Young and old, ugly and fetching. They dance. They dance. They dance. We sing for them, the beat keeping them in time. Their bodies all rhyme. We clap and cheer, add to the show. There is no stage and there is no crowd. We are together.

A circle forms. A hurricane rushing round the fiery eye. The song erupts and every body moves. Every step dictated by the pounding of the drums. Each step a pound on the dying earth. Trying to revive it. Make it sing with us. For us. We cycle to remind it how.

I remember days when I was young and new.

Sometimes a cloud hangs for days. Ash. Like snow, it covers the earth. A winter in hell.

I dream of a wolf. He has the face of a man. Enormous and black as the night that birthed him. He rampages through my head whenever I lay it down. He prowls through the cities. Cutting the necks of men while they sleep. Eating the children. Ravaging the women. His eyes are white and they shine with the glory of their menace. Lips always contorted into a smile. Even when those jaws break backs and swallow infants. A demon on four legs. He never makes a sound. There is only the crunching of bone. The screams that cut into the night.

His face is all I can see. It’s a face I know, but have long since forgotten. Shrouded like all faces now. There are no longer people. There is just us. We’re all that matters. And we’ve left it all behind.

We leave the dreams for those who care.

The shouts crescendo. Our song. Our dance. It rushes to space. A challenge to the moon and the stars and the sun. We have won. We own the night.

They call my name for I do not partake. They cheer and they sing. The clamor breaking a new sunless dawn. All eyes peering through the masks. They’re on me.

I smile, but no one can see. Each step to them beats the drums harder and faster. Each step they dance is for me. Each step I take is for them.

The fire is hot on my back and I watch them from inside. The torrent of flames. The storm of bodies. I close
my eyes. Each voice is a raindrop. Every beat is a wave. They’re mine. And I am theirs.

***

They slept, then let the pyre burn and they continue down the road to meet whatever lies before them. The voices remained in the sky from the night before, the beat still trembling in their legs. Mothers carrying children, husbands, all warriors, leading the pack. There were no voices once more. A silent tidal wave rushing through the countryside.