Your Country Needs You

A vast metropolis stretches, as far as eye can scan. A river intersects, spanned by a bridge from side to side. It’s the only clear space where the city’s lungs can breathe, some last vestigial semblance of fresh air.

Storm clouds gather in the skies and the city glows purple in their reflected light. It feels like an eerie pause, before the deluge begins, swamping the concrete jungle beneath. Rainwater will run off the rock hard surface, causing flash floods and submerging roads. The river, its capacity overrun, will burst its containing banks.

A stunted man-child stands in the only green place still growing, while a pink kangaroo leaps in panic out of its refuge. From a satchel hanging across his shoulders the boy hands out pamphlets of the apocalypse to come. He has a strange disturbing look about him, old before he’s young, wizened by prescience. Beneath his furrowed brow he glares accusingly at us. Your country needs you, the whole world needs you. Act now while you still can.