⠀Fresh spring of sewer water flooded the curb as the full moon broiled the late September street. Ostentatiously huge wrought-iron piece of junk glowed in the most gentle hue of orange, turning the grey-brick-road into a yellow one. Gargantuan and hollow, it looked as if it was about to collapse but stood tauntingly and towered over the whole city nonetheless. A woman in hijab acted like she was pinching the very tip with her thumb and the index finger and I simmered with the most ardent indignation.

⠀On the rim of a fountain enclosed by four stone lions sat a man with a ratty brown hair down to his shoulder and ram’s horn growing next to his ears. I asked him if he had heard of this war that we’re meant to be preparing for. He gave me a wide eyed look and asked back where I had heard of such thing.

⠀I told him of a procession the day before. Of maybe a hundred or so brown mares lugging pale faced people in a stiff dark uniform and a stiff dark hat on their back, dropping heaps of dung as they go.
⠀‘Get ready!’, screamed one of the gendarme.
⠀‘Get ready for the war!’, the rest had followed.
⠀Countless civilians got ushered to make ways for that languid and pungent march. Bulging eyes of four legged animals glowed dark with moisture as they lag with their heads stooped, yoked and gagged.
⠀I told him how I cried long and hard that night and woke up with a vomit containing nothing but acid and medicine.
⠀Upon smiling a knowing smile and chiming ‘oh-la-la’, he explained that that one had never left.
⠀Another man, tall and gaunt, appeared from a great pine yonder. He waved, whistled and stumped over the green grass loudly. But instead of approaching, he only sauntered at bay while shouting ‘one wrong move’ again and again.
⠀‘Indeed, only one.’ The horned man concurred and shoved a mildew ridden cardboard box in my face. They giggled in unison.


⠀The pope upon hearing this nodded his head despotically. Familiar lonesomeness choked me as we entered a grand marble palace.
⠀He had just gotten back from a long day of blessing an ordination and was in search for a good rest. Crowd of people in various gowns down to their feet had cheered him while men crawled with their belly flat to the ground and dragged their white smock like a virgin veil.

⠀In a room where a glass chandelier and lavender coloured velvet curtains cascaded stood an apparition of a woman in blue apron.
⠀‘Murderer,’ She mumbled through many unreal voices and footsteps echoing through ivory furnitures. ‘disgusting murderers.’ With a voice as opaque as her flesh she elucidated that this superb building had been glittering golden under the sun for over thousands of years. She nonstop whispered about the wickedness of the world in my ears but soon the pope in his red and white costume came back to snatch me.
⠀‘Give it to me!’ He shrieked with a hoarse voice.
⠀‘You gilded these walls with thievery and slavery’, were the last words from the woman before she sunk beneath the copper bathtub filled with a rubble.
⠀Wine glasses clanked instead of arrowheads in the banquet hall and the night erupted with neon-signs. But the temptation of pain was greater than that of comfort and I couldn't stop dreaming of senseless hopes.


⠀When I was finally dismissed, I was forced to roam the foreign street for many men and women in bullet proof vest stood guard the empty bridge I was meant to cross.
⠀Four young men in nike tracksuit wielding a rental e-bike halted and shouted at them, ‘Ne négligé pas la mains tendu’. Their broad back swayed like a vigilant shark slithering its way though the goopy ocean at dawn.

26/09/2026

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