Playing in rivers of filth

There was a big square town made of shacks,

and the garbage that was thrown from a lot of them

collected like a river in a gully below the shack line.

Some children were playing near the refuse.

They caught sight of me from far away and they began waving.

I waved back. They did not approach me for I am a stranger.

I thought about giving them some money but

I couldn’t bring myself to walk down to them.

A crane was walking slowly down the gully.

I stopped and looked at it intently.

It stopped and seemed to be examining me. I advanced

a step or two, it walked a little further down.

Then my brother appeared from around a wall.

It was too much and the bird lifted itself off the ground

and slowly flew to a safe, high perch not too far away.

The ground began to tremble and shake.

There was a muffled sound of thunder but

there were no storm clouds, only blue skies.

The thunder was getting louder, I felt surges

of vibrations from the ground pulse up my legs.

Was this an earthquake? Where could we find shelter from it?

My brother looked as alarmed as I felt.

The shacks were rattling and didn’t look safe – all that corrugated iron

frightened me. But maybe it was a convoy of cars or motorcyclists

or something – explosions of dynamite or petrol?

I turned to look up the hill –

and saw a dinosaur!

The size and appearance stamped it as a sauropod of some kind.

The behemoth stopped abruptly,

seemed to catch sight of the shacks,

It made a trumpeting sound in alarm

and vanished before my eyes!

No one was ever going to believe us!