Originally appeared in the print edition of Locust #8. Splash image by Anupam Roy.
I heard scurrilous things:
babies with two heads
locked in the attic,
harlots flying overhead,
and toothless men striding down Main Street
armed with mortar and shell.
But as I started exploring, I found darkness
and silence, evidence that all who lived there
had gone down into the pit and never reemerged.
It wasn’t in any way I had imagined.
It was stark and dour,
shut off from the world by the abandoned.
No more ore, no more reason for being there.
It was that simple.
And, for the only time in my life,
in a town with a population of one,
I was that one.
I didn’t stay long.
I couldn’t stop myself from counting.
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