City of Ghosts

Though this city is full of people, I see ghosts everywhere.

These ghosts are the size of the mountains that once crested the horizon. These giant skyscrapers and office buildings that poke up from the ground like giant thorns that pierce the sky. They grow so rapidly, like weeds. One day there was a plot of forest, the next and smoldering stretch of earth and soon after - a torre, a heaping pile of metal and brick, peering down at its occupant with lifeless, glass eyes.

 These ghosts tear across the land like the rivers that once raged across the Earth. These roads, that are a mockery of the playful streams that once brought life and water and now only bring the stench of black tar and pavement and the heavy echo of feet upon its shiny surface.

 These ghosts are cold stone and biting metal, these ghosts tower so high, that the throngs of humans are but shadows beneath their mass. The sunlight glints off these ghosts, reflecting the light, but none of the warmth. The spindly fingers of these ghosts cradle the humans, yanking them this way and that like helpless puppets on a string. I see the way the wrought iron railings of the bridge over the brackish water, cup the tiny forms scurrying across. I see the way the signs blink and wink and reflect the light back at you like a giant eye beckoning you closer. I see the way your mulish gaze mirrors the colorful goods in the show windows like candy offered to a small child with fat, reaching hands.

This city is crowded, and so full, people shoving past one another, not batting an eye at a robbery in an ally, or a creeper stalking a young woman or a child begging on the street corner,  yet I see so many ghosts. I fear that I won't be able to see them for very long. I see tall, spindley ghosts -streetlamps-  watching the crowds from above, peering down, with a spotlight, a gross reminiscent of the trees that once dotted the landscape, lending shade to the people, not harsh beams of white light.

In this city, I see so many people who see the ghosts I see. Their eyes are vacant, chins ducked into their jackets and heads stuffed into caps. In their pupils, I see the ghosts looming behind me, silently and darkly waiting until I become like the others.

This city is a ghost town, full of humans that are so desensitized to the obscure figures that twist along the horizons, stemming up like giant pillars, that they no longer know what they are seeing, despite it being directly in front of their face.

 The air is full of ghosts, thick clouds of dusty air that stream from the ghoulish automobiles that crowd the streets.

Day in and day out, we breath in these ghosts and they wreak havoc on our minds and lungs and bodies. Day in and day out we buy and shop and consume and in the wake of our greed we leave behind the ghosts, the ghoulish contempt of what once was. We leave behind but a shadow of what the earth once was and in place of the trees and rivers and soaring blue skies, we leave filth and pain and from the garden of agony and labor, tears and blood, crawl cars like centipedes, apartments, stores and banks, blooming from the ruined soil like a venomous, carnivorous, flower.

And the more we consume, and the more we destroy, the emptier are the eyes of the strangers I see on the street. The city is so full, yet anyone could be anyone because everyone is the same. Sonn even I shall be the same -  there is no stopping it. There is barely a speck of light in this city, and what is, is crushed so early on, like a dying sprout, unable to reach the sunlight with all the weeds blocking its path. I won't even be able to grieve the loss of myself for much longer as I shall forget that self, and how can one drive for something they have forgotten. If this city lost all its color, if its tones and shades bled out, or the sun never rose again, we'd hardly be able to tell. We will have forgotten, too caught up in the morning rush hour traffic, and the craving for coffee and the best office space, to care if the sky becomes gray or the rain becomes acid. If the smog in the air cloistered our lungs and we began to drop like flies, we would hardly be able to tell - we'd be too focused on which fast food restaurant has the shortest line and what time we need to pick up the dry cleaning. if the ghosts tore us apart, until we were little more than possessed shells, always craving more, more more -  we'd hardly be able to tell, because we'd be too busy organizing a nanny to pick the kids up from school and finding which color sticky note matches the calendars monthly color scheme. Even if you're aware, as I am,  you cannot stop the pull of the greed, of the materialism, for you breathe its very essence, and touch its very core. Even in my awareness, I am aware of myself slipping, of the ghosts closing in and my grasp slipping. I am aware yet I can hardly tell. You must remember in my stead that, though this city seems so full, it is only full of ghosts. When it takes over me I will be so consumed that I will forget what I now know, and I will no longer be able to save you from this empty city, full of ghosts. I won't be able to tell. You know how I know, because it's happening right now, and you can't even - oh my goodness! Look at those shoes, they are simply darling! I must have them!