Electric dreams flash and flit. A steady bass beat throbs and bumps. The air blends the smells of imported spices and aerosol deodorant. Boots clomp-stomp, vibrations spread through the linoleum.
We don’t look too hard at the cracks in the tiles or the missing ceiling panels.
The flaws are intrinsic to the ambiance.
Fey iconography molded from petrochemical plastics hang in plain sight, hidden in the visual noise. Functionally invisible. Walking by leaves a grease spot on your psyche, a faint recollection of bulbous inhuman eyes studying your purchases.
Crimson and moss are the colors of the rite.
Red for the blood and berries and flowers that stain the snow. Wine spilled intentionally in sacrifice, sopped up by the frostbit earth.
Malachite green stands in stasis beneath sheets of crystal, leaves locked in late-dying splendor. Coniferous titans hail from prehistory, spared the lumberman’s axe and shipwright’s ambitions. Anti-colored ice dust piles beneath the trees, vampiric and pale.
The amalgam waits patiently to suck the heat from living skin.
Absorb scenes of high technology, high above the hoary ground. Technological wasp nests made of post-processed materials rendered useful. The composite parts of forest findings regurgitated into two-by-fours and oriented strand board.
Babel needs infrastructure.
Melt the bones of the mother for our forks and knives. Better to spear and tear her progeny. Their fire becomes our fire, and we keep our candle cradled closely in our chests. Nonconsensual sacrifices demanded of others. Feast-filled oblations on behalf of ourselves. We are the corpulent martyrs of unenlightened self interest.
The tears do not come. If they did, their salt would not slake the thirst of one single creature. The flames would continue to burn in our caves. The flash of metals wedged between molecules of flesh would not cease.
We keep the warmth rising by any chemical means, a congregation of crypto-alchemists.
Pungent smoke rises from incense, no more effective a preventative here than during the plague.
We do so love to cling.
From the Anthropocene with love,
Equanimous Rex
Equanimous Rex 