Under a Vast Grey Sky.

 

Under a vast grey sky, on an endless and dustbowl plain where all our paths have been obliterated by the effluents of our own civilizations, we walk bent, hunched over as though each one of us carries an enormous sack on our backs. Each one of us has been weighed down by a camera as heavy as a box of rocks, a stocking stuffed with coal, a knapsack freighted with the accumulations of a lifetime. 

But this heinous beast is no inanimate weight; on the contrary, it hugs and bores down heavily on us with plastic sinews and indestructible muscles; it clutches us with with claws that are sunk so deep into our psyche they prick our conscience if we don't assuage their incessant demands; a cloud overhangs our movements like a lurking thunderstorm, illuminated by flashes of lightening it serves the same purpose as the chimera of enemies behind every Bush, a bogyman under a child's bed: to fill us with terror. 

As I observe mankind walking around thus encumbered, I wonder just where we think we're going like this? I admit, I don't know. But that's of little concern, as I don't know much at all. But the awful truth is that no one knows. Yet we must be going somewhere since life is always spurred on by the irresistible urge for nourishment and spectacle. Thirst and hunger, ambition and greed drive even the most despondent to seek sustenance and entertainment, from whatever source it can be derived. Eventually settling on the bullying of anyone or anything weaker, more helpless, or less protected than ourselves.

That is why I devise theories of sorts. I am curious to discover why none of we humans so encumbered seem to resent the ferocious beast hanging around out necks and glued to our backs; apparently we consider it part of ourselves. Every worn and serious face shows not the least sign of despair; under the depressing dome of the sky, with feet trudging through the deep, sterile dust of the overburdened earth as desolate as the sky, we plod along with the resigned mien of people who are condemned to hope forever.  

When I fell down, unable to bear the weight of the camera clutching my heart, no one stooped to help me up; no one even noticed that I'd fallen. So the procession passed me by and disappeared into the haze of the horizon until the rounded surface of the planet prevented my gaze from following their progress.

After a few moments of contemplating where everyone had gone, and what it now meant to be on my own, the initial panic brought on by the realization of my utter abandonment subsided; in a remarkably short time it was replaced by an irresistible Indifference that descended on me with the same force the camera had once exercised, and I was more fully oppressed by its weight than those in the parade that passed me by had been by the crushing weight of their cameras.