7.24.07 Poem by dan hightower

The blinding sacrament of new enveloped him as he rose from the volatile transition, filled with an eager wanting foreign to his previous months of comfort while he was processed. The light was blinding, and all around were the first cries and screams of new voice-boxes. Limbs violently reacting to thoughts, thoughts violently reacting to ability while ability continued to grow with each difficult breath. The factory ceiling was a mural of pastoral scenes manifested from some antiquated notion of bliss, some stubborn gene as yet unaffected by the change. Few people even knew, or cared to know these days, about that day in 2333 forever known as zero-day, the day when everything began and everything ended, the day when finally something happened. For the previous two centuries there had been stagnation on this planet, ever since the fall of America and it’s regime no one cared about prosperity or the pursuit of happiness, rather there was this pervading sense of preservation, of the simple act of carrying on in the face of the fallout.