Vox Meditantis

He asked for my favourite animal. A trap disguised as a game. I chose the badger: not pretty, not tame, just stubborn enough to dig. In this city, beauty gets you killed, but digging might just get you home.

I sowed poison in the ears of men to blight my brother’s name. Now the wheel turns, and I reap only dust. Hearken to the plain truth of a wasted soul before I am forever lost to memory.

They’ll tell you he was a number in a file, a name spelt wrong in a ledger. But I have the compass he held when the world went dark. Paper lies; brass remembers. Let them try and take him now.

I dwell amongst dead things, finding comfort in cold stone where living society offers none. Yet whilst I catalogue the ruins of empires, a greener ruin spreads within my own breast – the silent, shameful canker of envy.