• The dead town

    The town was dead. There is no other way to describe it. The old tin roofed houses sat like corpses along the dirt road. Mangy dogs and dead possums littered the streets like the garbage that blew in the wind. Dust clouds swirled in the orange light from the sun that baked the filthy streets. On porches old men smoked cigars and old women sat and knitted or tended their wilting gardens. Dirty, half naked, malnourished children roamed wild, playing in the trash and filth. Boys threw rocks at the dilapidated old buildings and the dogs and even at each other. The girls chased each other and made dolls from garbage, sticks and mud..... Or was it mud? The town stank of rotten food, feces and urine, though most of the residents had grown used to it and now smelled nothing. Anyone who had not grown up here would think they had stepped into hell. Perhaps it was hell. Just a small piece of the pit that had been transported to the middle of this desert. Full of tortured souls. Just outside of town was the cemetery. Where those who died from the conditions within or those who had taken their own lives to escape the horror were buried. No coffins, no tombstones. Just a great dead field where nothing grew. The bodies were simply thrown unceremoniously into shallow graves and buried in the sandy soil. A large chain link fence was stretched along its border to keep the starving dogs from feeding on the flesh of those who were buried in the sea of sand. At sundown the children would come inside and go to bed on dirty mattresses. A thin sheet would cover them, all crowded onto one mattress. Some had to sleep on the floor. They would draw straws or cast lots to see who would sleep where. Around the room they would pour ammonia to keep the rats away. If they didn't they might wake to find they were covered in bites. Some might even lose digits to the tiny beasts. The adults slept on couches or their own mattress, always better than that of their offspring. The town was dead. The town was hell. Death awaited every tortured soul. The grim reaper was king here. Every day he would claim a life, whether it was man, woman, child or animal. The townspeople would rise with the sun and come outside to see a dead dog lying in the street. They would call to their children to hurry and claim it. There would be meat on the table tonight. Yes, death reigned here. And he would until there were none left. No, not one. No one lost hope. They never had any to begin with.