Empty Town

The town is empty. The sky is purple, and sick. The road is dusty, and the tar is cracked. The bar is silent, the jukebox is broken, pint glasses shattered across rotting floorboards (the whiskey is fine) – the church is quiet, blessed with the sanctity of silence. Empty pews with no kneeling. The wind howls, the dirt dances; there is no life. Poor wayfaring stranger, don’t you believe in ghosts? Dark clouds gather, and fill the spirits with sickness. Malaise, a bloated uneasiness, bubbles up. The perpetual unrest, the thick stench of death. The ghosts cry into the wind, singing, “this world – and the next – is full of woe.”