Luck of the draw

Over here, stone is packed on stone, and the wall of our city rises. We are proud. Another year dries against the Ages without end. Men and women pass rustling on into autumn. Forever. Whatever.

It is a year like any other.

Over here, peace. But over there, none. Listen. Mortar burst from seams, the walls are breached, they crumble. Swept across the dunes, listen, the soft suffering of all those caught in the claws of Chaos come again. Oh how they wail. How they choke on Fate and ashes.

It is a year like any other.

Ancient ocean of the possible ever ebbing into the single cave of the real. Into our actual. Here; peace and plenty, but There; there they have none. Girls and boys are born. Whatever. A thousand, thousand, tiny heartbeats in the dark. Forever.

Two hearts. Beating their first at precisely the same time. They'll never know, because one is over here and one is over There. Lucky. He who has a home. So very, very, lucky.

You see, we are here too, we just happen to be. And so his heart will be cared for. His name is David and he is the lucky one. He has done nothing. For he is an infant. We will watch over him. He has done nothing yet. All he is, is the lucky one.

What little stone remains is tumbled down. Only ash to eat in the husks of our breakfast city. So many men and women flake from the skin, from the rotted earth. It is a year like any other.

It is a year, a sweet year. Bitter trickle of the possible now run dry in the wasteland of the Real. There is nothing here, in the sands some still call home, that he was thrust into, this second son. Day one. Shit out of luck. Sorry. You see, here, there is none. But girls and boys are born despite. A thousand, thousand, tiny heartbeats. Who will care for them? So very, very, very cruel you look at us who have no home. You cannot look at us. You do not look. What game is God playing?

Two hearts beat their first at precisely the same time, two sons, but they will never know. Bad luck boy you're over here now and you're not over there and you know what you'll never be.

Just Luck, you see, that we are here too, we who just happen to be, and so we don't care for him no not one little bit. His name is nobody and he is the unlucky one. He is an infant, and he has done nothing, and nothing is all he'll ever be. Yet. All he is, is, is…

Soldiers limp past a little bag of bones in the dirt and they wonder for a single instant only who was he and the answer is final he was just another one of the unlucky ones, hell, even we are better off than he, we who are gunned down, much better, and they carry on. And they carry on.

.:.