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They Smell Like Ashes
Ashes. Ashes. Ashes.
Nobody knows a damn thing, anymore. All the rules have changed.
The door is open. I saw it. Down in the church basement with the choir singing overhead.
The door’s open now and can’t be closed. Parsons Street. The dead church with holes in its windows and bones in its clothes.
Ghost birds screamed in the eaves when it happened.
They look like everyone else, which is to say, they look like nothing at all. Barren eyes. Dunes of ash piled over red centuries.
They walk and talk and do human things like the rest of us, but they’re not us. They’re here to replace our eyes. No amount of crying or closing can stop them.
The door is open and they want us all to see, and once we seen, as I have seen, never again can we turn away.
You don’t understand. They look just like us. You can only tell them apart by their scent.
They smell like ashes, fire, black clouds of boiling smoke on the horizon. They’re here, already. They’re here.
The door is open. The church on Parsons Street. The one with the holes in its windows.
Go there and see.
