Question and Answer

Navaris Darson

Is this a moment I’ll remember?

My forehead pressed against the cold glass

as I stare out onto the silhouette of L.A.

and the skyline of the mountains beyond:

black charcoal with electric embers,

orange dots and red dashes

under a dull tan-gray sky.

An amalgam of relentless angles

and outstretched palms.

Garish and serene. As much Sodom

if not Gomorrah. I stare ahead somberly,

trying not to look back at the salt

over my shoulder. I hunch above the grim

cityscape, a grotesquerie of stone surveillance

glowering from the eighth floor of a tower,

suspended from a height I once considered

impressive—though it’s not quite a God’s eye view.

I survey, and I brood. The city has become Gotham,

and I am a dark night. I wonder who will save us 

from the wild card in the stack: a virus this time.

If it’s not war, famine, or death; it’s pestilence.

It’s always something. I stare in isolation,

estranged from the scene, both of us held captive

within the frame of a window. No one ever said

the apocalypse would be easy. It is raining fire,

and I have been condemned

to stew alone in a cast iron cauldron

of my own riot and racket—in contrast

to the soft sigh of the wind outside. I observe,

and I burn. The city of siren and horn

lies muted and void of its usual droning.

Everything seems to be asleep

except for my weary flame

and the rocksteady hum

of the refrigerator

and the blinking

hazard lights

of a boxy

white

car

that

blurs

at the

edges.

Strange.

I had somehow

overlooked my own myopia.

I had not noticed everything

was blurry until just now—quiet

and blurry, an atmospheric

carbon of Rome’s city of ruin

in the aftermath of Vesuvius’ smoldering

betrayal. I ruminate now on the brown

venomous gloom spewed by the wildfires

in August. Or was it September? I endure

as the haze remains. It’s possible the fires

are still raging. Who can keep track anymore

of days and disasters? All I can do is stare

as the ash billows and buries me alive,

preserves me against my volition

and forces my vigilance. I keep;

forever awake—my face sunken in anguish,

and my eyes mortared wide to centuries

of devastation. As I loom,

the driver of a white van idles

at a remote-controlled entrance,

a gate for which I have often served

as an unrewarded guardian.

I cannot do nothing,

even as I suffer.

I am Lot, grieving

the pillared loss.

I am gargoyle,

excavated

from the

petrified

remains

of Pompeii.

I am Batman.

I allow and I grant.

I activate the trigger,

and I watch as the van

wheels through the gate,

the unseen driver heedless

of my existence. I drift. And I muse.

I don’t know if this moment is meant

to be remembered, but maybe this is why

I am awake at three AM on a Thursday in October:

to surrender myself unto the volcano as a sacrifice.

Maybe that is all we can do when our worlds are ending.

There is no warm glow. No altruistic spark. It simply is

what it is. I register that. I note it. And I only hope

that I have not unknowingly abetted the Greeks

against the well-fortified city of Troy.

Time will tell.

October 22, 2020