From the rusty pipes, water leaked down into dark puddles across the concrete floors. The machinery had ceased its grind and crunch. And having salvaged what they could, the scientists and their unnatural workforce had packed up and moved on long ago. Behind a cold steel door, under lock and bolt, lay a figure beneath a rough, scratchy blanket, his cleft-hooves sticking out. Where once horns sprouted, rough stumps now throbbed and twinged like phantom limbs. His wasted hand held a leather bound book, heavy with legends. Opening to the page that told of his own story, he read of nymphs until his loins ached from longing. A recurring dream of reprieve. In sight but out of reach. Without his flute to play, a refrain of an incomplete melody cut in and out of the silences, through another night in exile, on the cold outskirts between man and nature.
Artwork by Roberto Slomp.