Prophet Song

by Paul Lynch

She moves through the house trying to see ahead, the world branching into impossibility, the dread thing visible in the growing light from the kitchen window, two columns of dark smoke adrift over the south suburbs, a helicopter gunship nearby, she cannot guess how far, perhaps three or four kilometres away. She turns on the radio awaiting the news and steps outside to the washing line, watching the trees in roseate light and wondering what it is they can know, perhaps it is true what they say, how the trees sense the air and speak their terror through the ground, letting other trees know that peril has come, what sounds in the sky like some all-consuming fire chewing wood in its mouth. She drops the clothes in the basket and looks down at her hands and does not know why she remains so calm, another door has been opened, she can see this now, it is as though she were looking out upon something she has been waiting for all her life, an atavism awakened in the blood, thinking, how many people across how many lifetimes have watched upon war bearing down on their home, watching and waiting for fate to come, entering into silent negotiation, whispering and then pleading, the mind anticipating all outcomes but for the spectre that cannot be directly looked at.