There were forests and wildlands at the outskirts of the empire––still, can you imagine?! All quaking earth and quail whistle, where roaring waters sounded ceaselessly. We were paid to visit them, as translators––not very much, as everyone believed that none of the forms of this land had anything informative to offer. What they had to say was so much more than the intelligence the emperors were after but there wasn’t a word for what it was, so we returned without much to say, accepting pennies for our silence. We said nothing, too, of the stifling emptiness they built of gilded halls of recycled data sets, sharpened to cut the earnest pilgrim at every edge. The naked emperors bled, too, but no one spoke of this––neither the blood nor their nakedness. The dogs followed at a distance, to lick it up. There was no room in the shelters in the shadows of the golden halls, so we took our numbers and got in line with the others while the shining halls stood empty, dripping blood with the wind and the dogs howling through them.
touring the empire
at midnight
