Leaves fall into a bubbling tarmac. They swim to surface; the tarmac cakes and I finally see the train wreck. There are midgets of bodies, in their thousands, being eaten by the sun and as they rot, dotted across a millennial floor, the toddlers rejoice. This meal will finally wipe out charcoal black, mothering jade! Leaves fall into a bubbling tarmac. I see a midnight train drooping closer, dropping off more bodies – distorted limbs, teeth and tongues, oh so long, black and thick, onto a pile just beside the pothole. I hear the creaking, subtle yet with every creak, haunting spells yank eyeballs out of sockets. Leaves fall into a bubbling tarmac. I see the toddlers, joining in the sun, grabbing at bodies, toying, former scars now widening hips, accommodating change. I see the toddlers, becoming schools, churches, parliament houses; wealthy museums dusty from the imbibing of ancient truths as they slash limbs and sprout out of bare fields, towering over skyscrapers. I see the toddlers parade triumphantly, meat filled with salt and light that now reclaim the ruins. Leaves fall into a bubbling tarmac. All of a sudden, there are no bodies across the tarmac, just a long thread of amber that twirls like a hurricane and instead of arresting everything in its path, vomits gusts of change upon the land. Where there was blood, I see carpet grass, where there was skin and teeth, I see splendor and sparkle. Where there was voiced pain, I see rivers gushing out of tongues, towering like eagles, then swooping to drown the drought. Then I wake and wonder, what could all this mean? Is the next generation really going to be that powerful? Are they really going to lick bowls clean where we left rotting with hate, apathy and bigotry? Or they join the cycle, never ending?
DAVID AGYEI-YEBOAH is a writer and artist from Accra, Ghana. He has work published/forthcoming in Mister Magazine, Juste Literary, trash to treasure literary, Literally Stories, Afritondo, Deep Overstock, The Quilled Ink Review, Decolonial Passage, Ethel Zine & Micro Press and elsewhere. Dogs make him smile, always.