8/21/2005
Illustration: “Space Couple” © 2005 by Romeo Esparrago
“Ready to go?”
I nodded. We walked to an electric car. I got in, no longer caring who saw me get in. We drove past the chaos that was the city. Outside was a mix of shanties and high rises, and religious communities bounded by perimeter fences. Communications towers dominated the sky over children carrying water buckets. Live performers and 4-D screens showered the crowd with advertisements.
I knew the dead zones had forced survivors to the unaffected areas in an intolerable density. And the worst explosions of violence came from the overcrowding. Wars over water, land, religious and ethnic differences, trade routes, and any other reason had ravaged the planet, made worse by too many people and dwindling resources. That was two generations ago, but the aftermath still bubbled in the cauldron defined by old safety notices.
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8/3/2005
Illustration: “The Meeting” © 2005 by Romeo Esparrago
The accursed time traveler,
Swept up and set down in a vortex,
Finds himself in the future where
Men look like women
And women look like men,
Or perhaps they look
Like neither.
Seeing they have no eyes to see
And no mouth with which to speak,
He panics at the sight of their
Featureless faces and the strange
Fire burning beneath their
Gauzy skin.
Like Cain he seizes a rock
And strikes one while the other
Hides among synthetic trees.
Out of the shattered skull
A chrome globe rolls forth,
Gleaming and cold,
Totally bloodless.
The traveler picks up the sphere
And sees his own reflection
Distorted in a miniature
Horizon of glimmering steel. *
About the Author: Ray Sikes teaches English at Delaware Technical & Community College. His stories, essays, and poems have been published in various print and web publications, and he is the author of “Blues for a Dime Store Guitar”, a novel.
(c) 2005 Ray Sikes rsikes@dtcc.edu
About the Artist: Romeo Esparrago is able to keep up with the normal flow of time by jogging in place.
(c) 2005 Romeo Esparrago http://www.romedome.com
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