Someone has left their slippers neatly lined up under a tree by a low wall in the orange grove. As if they walked right out of one life in search of another and vanished without a trace. Not even a footprint or a forwarding address. Perhaps they are still out there somewhere in the surrounding fields, partially visible for an instant between the leaves and the branches. Trapped somewhere on the other side. Able to see us but unable to be seen. Except out of the corner of your eye, or under the silvery light of a sad moon.
Yet still they speak to us these shadows in the dark, these apparitions, these hungry ghosts. Whispering in the fields like dead leaves in the breeze. We are coming for you soon, sweet lovers, dreamers and fools. We are coming for your children too. Saints and sinners, business men and priests, teachers, artists, labourers and factory workers. Rich and poor, sick and healthy, young and old. We are waiting to devour you with a hunger that will never cease. We will eat your flesh and bones. We will suck you dry until there is only dust and scorching desert. Families, villages, communities, towns, cities, countries and continents. We will not cease until we have devoured them all and made a wasteland of your fragile hopes and dreams.
02 August 2018