Demolition

In a hotel scheduled for demolition antique fixtures of crystal and stained glass twirl beneath tall tin ceilings while below, along scaffolding and ladders, a disposal crew scrambles, wielding pliers like giant pincers. Wires snap like frayed nerve endings and lamps topple, shattering onto the distant parquet floor. Done for the day, the workers leave.

Years pass, the hotel’s forgotten, the demolition incomplete. Eventually herds of rhino and wildebeest take residence there: they relish the crackly light, the shards that don’t pierce so much as scour their raw scabrous skin, the itch of centuries slowly discharged like spent lightning bolts.