Scars of Civilization

This is a piece I illustrated for a short prose my friend, Joseph Giuliano, wrote. If you'd like to indulge in more of his musings, go to workingclassmonks.com for more.

As I walk amongst the barren city streets, I can’t help but wonder what this landscape once was. I am told of a time of bustling movement and smiling faces, yet the skeletons of buildings scatter the blocks, reminders of a life of purpose long since past. Thick heavy clouds blanket the sky in every direction, casting eery shadows on my path. Tales of the sun are like fables, serving only as warnings for those who are drawn to the dark. Aversion, although less effective, has always been more attractive than reward. Not even the dying hints of foliage that pierce the decaying concrete breathe any life into the scene. It’s like plastic fruit, misleading, ridiculous, and more than unnecessary. Rabid dogs feed off the dead, scavengers no more alive than their lifeless prey. My sluggish stroll inadvertently kicks away from me fragments of a forgotten life, curious jokes of its replacement. My voice, ineffable as it is, chokes out a gasp of dry breath. Begging to shape the words, lost as they are, it cracks and dissipates in a fog of breath nearly freezing in front of me. We were told life would carry on without us; now it seems that we have carried on without life, our earth replaced with the scars of “civilization”. We have outlived our own expectations, grandiose and schizophrenic, now the zombies of a near-dead planet.