We’re running out of water. The Pleiades shines above the black shadow of a tree. 20 000 hectares of rainforest just burnt up the road and it’s just the beginning. I fill a bottle from the tap to water the plants. I pour one on the earth for the ants, trying not to drown them. At night I dream of fighting fires. By day I dream of busting dams. I research how to do it, but I’m bad at understanding technical things. And I’m gutless. My eyes shine dimmer every day. I don’t feel like I’m helping. On the internet I watch the children print handprints on the prison wall in red paint and think what right do I have to be angry. They could print red handprints on the tailings dam, but the security guards would stop them. The birds are thirsty and they die drinking the poisonous water from the dam. If only security guards dressed like straw men, they could scare away the birds. Why should the mines get all the water while the ants are thirsty? I look up at the Pleiades and I know I’m not sacred, I’m not starlight, I’m not fucking golden and the garden is dead. I’d try to write a happy ending but it would just be lip service. The ants are gods.

I sit outside the takeaway shop, with an old man, as the city is surrounded in fire. But the old people are too old to notice the dust and the smoke and the t.v. is too old to notice anything it simply drivels on with no mention of the burning forests, the dying wildlife. Only man’s life will grab the t.v.’s attention now, and only if he’s white enough to build a church inside his heart. He doesn’t know if heaven is real, he says, but he’ll be finding out soon enough. He feels himself dying every night. If it rained on the sheets it would be a catastrophe but it hasn’t rained for years. Only God can make it rain, he says, God is the rain I reply.