I walked in a desert with the mists swirling around my ankles and there saw out in the gloom the black shape of a city buried and forgotten. Before it was a colossal statue of a man who was perhaps a hero or a king or a god to the long departed civilization. Half his face was missing. The remaining expression expressed little. It called to me, that city, to enter. To see what wonders had been forged within its border in its golden age. But I walked on into the desolation. Whatever was once there is now gone or devoid of meaning without the hands to operate it or the minds to explain it. Whatever brought them low is the concern of the dead and not for me to bear.
Paddy Dobson
21st April 2021