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>> Damn the light. Damn the chandeliers. Damn their brazen brightnesses. Damn every winged thing and

 

whatever floats adrift through the rust-ridden seas. Damn the ash-capped mountains and flooded valleys.

 

Damn all the cathedrals, still standing with their stain glass mockeries. Damn the steeples and splintered

 

pews. Damn the holy books and crumbling hymnals. Damn the hallelujahs. Damn the sculpted fountains

 

and festering waters. Damn what’s left of the regime too, safe behind their ironclad curtains while the rest

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of the world sinks into oblivion. Damn the atomic roses—cherry-red shrapnel, sobering evidence of the

 

chain blasts that boomed us back into another century. Damn the mutated wild horses. Damn the trampled

 

fields and meadows once meant for galloping. Damn the puttering three-eyed frogs, slapping through their

 

glowing puddles. Damn the dingy strip malls collecting dust. Damn the registers and rustling paper money

 

and loudly clacking coins. Damn the aisles that still stand like exhibits in a haunted museum, their foreign

 

artifacts immaculate. Damn the cars and trucks and luxury SUVs stranded on the highways, trunks popped

 

like eyes winking wide. Damn the lawnmowers left sprawled on their sides in the neighborhoods. Damn the

 

fences. Damn the doors. Damn the windows half cracked and fly-magnet pies on the sills gathering mold.

 

Damn the manicured gardens. Damn the orchards. Damn the bright tubes and computers, every screen

 

for not being a mirror. Damn the playgrounds, the monkey bars and make-believe fortresses. Damn the

 

schools. Damn the libraries and big oak counters and perfumed books, from which we learned nothing.

 

Damn the movie theaters and gallon buckets of popcorn pumped with rivers of liquid butter. Damn the

 

teeth-corroding sodas. Damn the ripped ticket stubs and previews which were always better than the movies

 

and the entire business of escapism. Damn the upscale restaurants with their fancy linens and gleaming

 

platters. Damn the finely polished silverware and never-sharp-enough cutlery. Damn the glossy, oversized

 

menus. Damn the dumpsters. Damn the sinks. Damn the pipes, bricks, mortar and stone. Damn the walls.

 

Damn the damns. Damn them and damn us, damn me and damn you too. And damn the rainbows. And damn

 

the rainbows. And damn the rainbows. Damn every color that dares to be anything but gray. <<

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