Stripped of their future, the children are crying. In the bowels of the earth a metal god scours the corpses of mountains, gnawing at hollow bone, manganese, copper, iridium, black gunk. His eyes look out at me from across the table. I writhe when I see his hunger. I pull away. “No more!!” I howl inside, while outside my face contorts into a smile. Just a little more time, he pleads. Just a little longer.

Outside the sky burns and a thick cloud carrying the lost dreams of generations hovers under the sun. I am paralysed. We never left the industrial revolution. Clumps of wood pulp bleached white with peroxide stick to my eyelids and coat the inside of my throat. All the trees are gone. Stacks of lumber splinter across the nation on prosthetic veins, and still there is more they want to eat.

Syringes litter the street and it’s called development. Guts tumble out over her scarred waist and a jutting chin pleads for connection. I was you once. You are me. Two false turns. That’s all it takes.

Your future has been stolen from you and all I can say is that I am so sorry. I am so sorry I did not do more. I am so sorry that the seeds will no longer grow. I am so sorry for the life you will never know. We thought we had it all computed in our neat little models and we counted the numbers, so many numbers. And then only the numbers counted. What will it take to have us on the streets yelling for our birthright, driving stakes into the black heart of plastified greed? What will it take for me to untwist from my grimace and scream out “No more!”.

I am running down a maze and panting, drained with death, charred trees and vultures and horses lodged in lungs. I whip my head around in a frenzy – I don’t know which path to take. I want to escape. I am terrified. My granddaughter curls a little tighter into a ball in the softness of my womb.