The Cost of Living

After they have taken everything you still have a stray, unowned patch of sunlight finding its way in and spending a little of its time keeping you company, playing around your feet. The things they discarded on their way out have already broken into bloom and even the empty spaces have become polished pools waiting for the moon to bathe its image in tonight. But don't get too smug. Tomorrow they'll be back with a bill for services rendered by the sun and moon. Then, just when you think that will be the last transaction, they will issue you a bill for each thought you have, calculated on gestation time and its estimated weight. There will be no escape other than to become a ghost incapable of thought, twitching inside one of their computers, lost forever between one and nought.