Scene

© 2004 Braudis Lee Pegram
All rights reserved.

Night had fallen,
the darkness making it easier
for the dead to be among us.
Though I lived on the 11th floor,
I could still hear the chronic screams
of victims.

Living in New York
was no better, no worse.
The plague had no geography.
How this materialized none knew.
Some said it was always with us like oxygen
but not breathed so deeply as now.

Again the screams.
My telescope recorded the ruin.
I could see people scurrying
and chaotically struggling like huge ants,
trying to escape the shadow of death
slowly oozing like blood from a wound

And then without the slightest warning
the rain reigned beyond Noah's vision.
The arc of the Ark failed geometry.
If now happened then, the world would've drowned,
but now everyone ran screaming for shelter
like the rain was engulfing acid

I heard the calamity slowly
coming for me like a crescendo
of the gears of a massive machine
up the stairs, the elevator, into the halls
until the floor and walls vibrated like an earthquake
personified on the other side of my door.

The pounding! The pounding! Seeping
through the cracks forming like cancer,
overtaking the hinges!
They will not have me! Will not
My 12-guage blasted through
and with the thundering sound

I woke up like lightning
A harrowing fantasy I thought,
still lounging on the chaise
wondering origin of this nightmare
until I plumped the pillows and resumed
reading the newspapers.

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