The Lithic Signature of Zero: ( Inspired by Max Ernst's Surrealistic Painting, Europe After The Rain, 1940-42)
The sky: A SHATTERED LUNG. Exhaling isotopes. A bruised throat. Strangling the ash of a billion burned suns.
The blue is gone. FLICKERING STATIC. A dead channel.
The rain begins.
*Tchk.*
Not water. LIQUID NEEDLES. Grey mercury. Scent of SCORCHED HAIR. Ozone. It hits the soft meat of the world. It VITRIFIES.
The earth: A JAGGED, WEEPING MINERAL.
In the centre: LOPLOP. The Bird-Superior. Phantom curator. The GREAT DECAY.
No feathers now. A THORAX OF HOLLOW TELEVISION TUBES. A TOWER OF PETRIFIED LACE. CLAWS OF SURGICAL STEEL. A beak like a rusted scythe INCISING the belly of a dead horizon.
*Tchk. Tchk.*
He stands on MELTED CLOCKWORK. Pelvises. His eyes: OBSIDIAN GEARS. Spinning in reverse. Reflecting the bloom. The mushroom cloud that never stops rising.
Loplop spreads his wings. BLISTERED ZINC. Shale.
From his talons the continent dangles. A string of RADIOACTIVE VERTEBRAE. The EIFFEL SKELETON— splintered into a crystalline geometry of DRIPPING WAX. The BRANDEN-BONE GATE— dissolved into BAROQUE SALT. A mouthless face fossilised in a shout.
Loplop stalks. His GALLERY OF THE LAST BREATH. He CORRODES the VITRIFIED PIANO. Ivory keys: FUSED TEETH. Playing a chord of SHATTERING CRYSTAL. He listens. The TELEPHONE OF NERVE ENDINGS. Rotary wires: CALCIFIED SYNAPSES. Humming. The frequency of the FINAL DIAL TONE.
*Tchk... Tchk...* The rain hits his metallic crown. A Geiger prayer. Music for a PETRIFIED THEATRE. He polishes the PETRIFIED WEDDING DRESS. A shroud of JAGGED LIMESTONE.
Heavy with STRONTIUM PEARLS. He guards the JAR OF LIQUID SHADOWS. Silhouettes unstitched from pavement. Floating. In a brine of HEAVY WATER.
Architect of the FINAL GEOLOGY. Presenting ruins to a god of vacant space. A wing of SERRATED FLINT gestures to the chimneys. They were men. They were mothers. Now? POROUS COLUMNS OF CALCIUM. Drinking the poisoned mist.
The sun: A CAUTERISED WOUND.
Loplop tilts his head. Listens. The world is TURNING TO GLASS.
King of Birds. In a land where the air is too heavy for flight.
Presiding over a MUSEUM OF SCREAMS— an inventory of CALCIFIED WHISPERS frozen into a landscape.
The rain is the ink. The earth is the parchment.
Loplop is the FINAL, JAGGED SIGNATURE. A page written in FIRE AND BONE.
The heavy water settles. A final, viscous ripple.
The last sound: The MOLECULAR SNAP of a single, frozen shadow breaking off the wall and falling into the INFINITE, SILENT SALT.
*The hiss of a screen flickering out.*
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