from my unpublished collection
We're under water, beneath clouds, the light is smeared and grey, as if it were filtered through a dirty aquarium, suspended there with bits of seaweed, bits of other fish, drifting slowly down, our cities failing. Our cities are bullet holes blasted through plexiglass: that's the landscape seen from space. Lines of fracture, suburbs, roads. The castle at the bottom of the tank is small, not distant. It was never real, it was not a castle people really lived in. The sunken treasure chest is half as large as the castle, too big to really hold anything. We're living at the bottom of a cold and deadly ocean, under pressure, protected by a dome. There are those who plot against us night and day. Outside are enemies, certain death.
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First published in Grain Magazine
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images and text © by Alpay Ulku
