"If You See Something, Say Something"

 

I see smoke rising, women running toward a river and horses mounted by blue coated riders winding through huts and stone circles, delivering rifle blows and shots…

I see a man holding a whip leave a large white plantation house and enter broad fields where men, women and children are stooped over, picking from rows of low bushes...

I see a building rising out of barren lands, inside are women in baggy orange clothes walking along painted narrow lanes, waiting, and obeying large men speaking bland orders...

I see men in the top conference room of a mirrored glass tower discussing plans: detonating bedrock and mountaintops, navigating melted ice passageways in the dark North, puncturing the ocean beds with great steel drills...

Yesterday, I saw an odd silver-gray bird. It rose up unnaturally and I saw it has five legs. It is a metallic thing with one roving eye which scans and records. It sees me and sends vague retina images of me to someone who also views me and who says something about me I cannot hear.