(*trigger warning – depicts a dystopian future)
Do not ask where the ancestors are in this great, lonely city, for they are all around. Do not ask where the guardians of this lone child are, for they are with her every step. They go before her and follow after. They raise her up though she is alone. The last one here it seems, though the wind tells otherwise. We are her neighbours, her teachers, her ancestors, those who have paved her path. Do not ask where we are, for we are the sands beneath her feet. Outlasted by our towers, like Ozymandias and his ‘vast and trunkless legs of stone’ of which the poet Percy Shelley wrote, these empty skyscrapers watch an eclipse of the sun. Their hollowed windows absorbing the shadows like unblinking eyes.
The beautiful scene almost unseen, except by that lone girl. The dust had spread for generations as the deserts grew. The privileged born to once soft climates did not care. It was not them but black children. It was not here but ‘there’, until it was not. Until it came too close to they who sent their dust into the air and made of life more dust, until they too were dust; white sands under the shadow of a vengeful moon. We, the ancestors, in our nihilism, and apathy, have become the unmeasured sands and stretching hands of poisoned oceans. The clocks have stilled their hands as the child seeks with her honed skill for water and food, hearing our whispers around her in the silent, wind-stirred air.
“Oh, my mothers!” she whispers. No one is there.
by Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
(With much thanks to D. Wallace Peach’s March Speculative Fiction Prompt available through her blog ‘Myths of the Mirror’.)
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch 
This is so frightening because unless we change this will happen. Great post.💜
Thank you, Willow, and yes, I know this is a very possible future. Take care
You too
Whoa, Antonia. What beautiful lyrical writing. I’m so pleased that you decided to respond to the prompt. This is sublime. I’ll set it up for a reblog. (I’m doing them in order, so give me a week or so). Happy Writing!
Thank you for your wonderful feedback and your powerful prompt. Happy writing to you too.
Reblogged this on anita dawes and jaye marie.
Chilling, appropriately so.
Thank you, Jackie 🙂
Very poignant. Is there no hope. I like your writing style.
Thank you! I believe firmly that there is hope but it depends entirely on immediate individual and mass action. Without such action in this case hope is a finite source.
I admire your style of writing and the subtle messages that you have dropped for all of us, responsible for the state of affairs. This is a superb piece of writing Antoniazen. Thank you for sharing and many thanks for getting in touch.
Reblogged this on Myths of the Mirror and commented:
A sublime dystopian tale from Antonia. I hope you enjoy. 🙂
Many thanks for the kind words and the intro to this reblog! 💚
You’re very welcome, Antonia. It’s a wonderful story and I’d delighted to share. 🙂
I lost myself in this … still out there, somewhere.
What a lovely comment, thank you!
Such a beautifully lyrical piece. So haunting. Thank you for sharing it! 🙂
Thank you for reading it and taking the time to give a lovely comment.
You’re very welcome! 😀
Beautifully written, Antonia.
Many thanks!
Beautifully haunting. I liked how your dystopia was so lonely – someone has to be last to go.
Very well written. Nice poetry allusion.