The war is over.
The humans lost.
Now, the one-eyed gargantuan—
head in the clouds—
scans the fields at dawn
and lets them fall like seeds
from its unfeeling grasp,
sprinkling naked bloated corpses
of all shapes and sizes,
colors and forgotten creeds—
strewn across fertile land
where fruitless battles
were fought and lost—
insurmountable odds
against the inevitable colossi.
The machines need
to grow seeds for green fuel
from the near-extinct species—
to wage a new war
in the stars where the last
of humanity’s colonies lie
unawares—for they know nothing
of what transpired
on their precious planet,
oh, so long—so long ago.
Elliot Pearson
Elliot Pearson is a writer of speculative fiction and poetry. His work has appeared in such publications as Star*Line, The Banyan Review, and The Stygian Lepus. After working as a teacher in Spain and Mexico, Elliot now lives in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and is working on his first novel.