Shoulders bump and scratch against mine as I walk to the stand, I hear in the distance faint yelling coming from a child, a smile heard from miles away.

The warmth of the sun places itself on my temple, slowly making it damp. I sweep it off with the back of my hand and continue my journey through the fire that burns in between bodies and gods.

After a short while of walking on uneven tumbled rocks, the road hurting the soles of my feet, I manage to smell something through the overwhelming presence of perfumes surrounding me.

I get closer and screams, cries accompany my steps; a smell, putrid, redolent of horrendous bodies stacked upon bodies, starts slowly taking over all of my senses.

Corpses, more than one, but i couldn’t tell you how many. I fight through the crowd surrounding the scene, my movements becoming those of a rabid animal, my breath feels unsteady.

The voices of two men spread assurance among the now petrified and stagnant crowd through their certain authority.

The warmth washed over me one last time before disappearing.

Leaving its place for a single word pronounced by one of the men,

my wife’s name

in the pile of repugnant immobility.

I taste and feel my own disgusting insides getting rejected by my body,

by the impossibility of the situation

and the fetid smell of vomit is now making its way down my wet and heavy shirt.

Disgust.

Disbelief.

The smile of the child is no longer heard and

the sun no longer dares to face cold sweat.