I
Cumulonimbus clouds choke the horizon, later there are pockets of lightning. Distant thunder but also bells tolling at the church on the hill. None of us go home, even when the rain begins and the boulevards turn slippery.

II

Perhaps there are no stories left to tell, perhaps there is only reality now – beaming into our eyes and ears and heads in a dumb, endless stream of short-form content. Imagine that.

According to Wikipedia, 5.6 million people have fled Syria in ten years of civil war. Fled where? Where did they go? Does it look like home there? Did they bring their things? Did anyone stay behind to dream or tend to gardens? Do militia men leave their AKs at the door with their shoes? Where, in a demilitarised buffer zone, does one charge an iPhone?

Well?

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III

Oh, you thought we forgot about you. Distracted, it’s true, but we cannot forget. Never.

(The dead never die, they just become invisible.)

How are you feeling? What is it like there? Can you tell us: where does the energy flow?

(The Dead Man never died, he is just invisible.)

Flow like the water in courtyard fountains. Or is that just the sound of the rain? I guess we’ll all wait here.

…

Tristan Foster is a writer from Sydney, Australia. He is the author of Letter to the Author of the Letter to the Father and 926 Years, co-authored with Kyle Coma-Thompson.