Once a Bird Going East Met a Bird Going West

and inquired of what lay ahead and the latter replied, “There is naught but the nests of the old human race, who are dead.”

So they rested awhile and they looked at the clouds and the grass, and the birds in between. Then the bird going east thought to wonder aloud who the old human race could have been.

“They were builders, like ants, but they walked on two legs,” said the one going west, “like a bird and I’ve heard it from some that they didn’t lay eggs but I find the suggestion absurd.”

“I don’t know how they died and I thoroughly doubt there is anyone left who would know and I cannot imagine a way to find out how it was all those seasons ago.”

Then they chirped their goodbyes and the bird going east made its way to the city at last and the tall, tilting tombs of those two-legged beasts squatted silent and crumbling and vast.

It had no word for concrete and no word for steel and no word for this forest of stone and no word for the way that the place made it feel very fleeting and small and alone.