Four hundred years consumed in a minute.
Eat, maybe half. The rest? You can bin it.
Five generations all toasty and warm
and if you've something to say, pick your free platform.
Walk around like in a fairy tale
and if someone leaves, there's always e-mail.
The righteousness of being victorious
on porcelain thrones, ever so glorious.

In times like these, I wonder why
so many of us are left out to dry.
I thought that this was supposed to be
the best ever time in our history.
Alas it seems that actual malice
is what kings of the day continue to practice.
The vast majority must be cursed,
for these are the times that are the worst.

With hearts as empty as the ozone layer,
I've come to think this game's beat its player.
A multitude of threats replace those of old.
The planet's getting hotter while more are dying of cold.
Peoples of this world who've existed for millennia
live so far away from the virtues of xenia.
We're brothers, sisters, brethren of a kind,
so I don't know why I want a bullet in my mind.

Why prolong a life without meaning?
Number goes up, but down goes the feeling.
They built an empire of our decades, and it failed.
Around our tombs, our mothers stand veiled.
They'll sit up there, in their ivory towers
raining applause on fields of poppy flowers.
Then a man whose foot's already in the grave
broadcasts laps for coin - the public puppet slave.

Kids became robots o'er far, far away,
while the logos they print keeps self hatred at bay.
Yet it matters not, for we still have to cry
when the wrong logo makes our own kids die.
We live lives that are antiquated,
archaic, obsolete, uncultivated.
The promise of freedom, to love, and to thrive;
This future we'ere promised never arrived.

"Silence is the loudest sound"
is sentiment so unprofound,
but when the beating music stops,
you're covered, damp, in water drops.
The cloud rolled in and blocked the sun
and killed the day you thought you won,
and night surrounds all that you see
and who knows what you're meant to be?
You're covered, now, in bullet holes
and now it's clear what future holds:
what once was lost ne'er to be found,
for silence is the loudest sound.

The song of birds now run aground,
the flood from high now has you drowned,
there's nothingness from all around
for silence is the loudest sound.

What once was lost ne'er to be found,
for silence is the loudest sound.

I thought, once, I had limitless time.
That the mountain ahead was all mine to climb.
But I spent my best years, my time in my prime
living out a fucking pantomime.

Now it's most of a day stuck at a desk.
There's twenty four hours and no time to rest.
A labyrinth of paper, Kafkaesque,
all at the jolly green giant's behest.

He shut me in a room full of clocks
and chained up the door with a bunch of locks.
His trial seemed unorthodox
but anything's worth it to pump his stocks.

Death is a luxury I cannot afford,
so I'm doomed to spend eternity bored.
The things I would scream if it weren't untoward
are almost universally abhorred.

So I sit in a hole of my own design.
A knife at my throat and I'm drawing a line.
The lights in the sky finally align
as the moon hits its zenith and I reach my deadline.

Twenty fifty five.
Spend all your time trying to stay alive,
for the hope of the future,
yours, mine, and ours,
as you lay back in wonder
at the sheer number of stars.

Twenty fifty five.
This rock we spin on is in a nosedive:
a tumbling marble
in a downward spiral
and persistent dread
of something going viral.

Twenty fifty five.
All that once was trapped in an archive.
The lessons we learnt
from our worst mistakes
are bastardised
into calamitous takes.

Twenty fifty five.
That which was promised ne'er did arrive.
The chromium dreams
of electric sheep
were crushed into dust,
now it's oil they weep.

Twenty fifty five.
All the lights in the sky scream that they're alive,
but they're so far away,
their mouths must be giant.
Would they even care
if our planet went silent?

Twenty fifty five.
The year that we fear. Will we survive?
Since it might be too late
for our planet to mend.
Our time might be short.
Will we soon reach our end?

Overthink or underthink or anywhere between.
Do anything to stop them seeing me as mean.
Nothing but silence, left without reason.
Did I do something that they think is treason?
It's not them, it's me. I know I'm the problem.
With hat in hand, apologies solemn.
But it won't be enough. It's never enough.
Cast out alone, the going is tough.
Why do I care when they simply lie?
But they lie to themselves, they don't know what's inside.
Perspective limited by their mortal forme.
The divine are left grieving with nothing to mourn.
Crying sat next to an empty bedside.
Try me, friend, for I've nothing to hide.
So maybe, then, it's not about me.
There's a love in your heart, that I see in thee.
The eros I know that you wish to share
is not meant for me. Not that I care.
Within each other those feelings caught,
while I've been left an afterthought.

All you are led to believe is false
and your idols and gods have abandoned you.
The well you worked so hard to climb out of
beckons you to return, tempting you
with the promise of a familiar home.
When all is dust bar whence you came,
why fight?
Accept that this is all you are,
accept that which you'll never be,
and return, once more, to the bottom of the void.
Surrender.
Surrender.
Surrender.

Bring me your tired,
your poor, your dispossessed,
and I will make them mine.
Bloodied arms
bear succulent fruit
when given little time.
With empty chest,
and stomach besides,
the smallest and most heinous crime:
to take a bite -
the wrong end of
our novel nightmare paradigm.

The sky on fire,
emotion dire,
years to go before we're home.
Concrete walls,
and roof, and floor,
to dream a palace made of chrome.
Awaken unto
soiled sheets.
Ostracize one of our own.
To prophesise:
before we know,
we'll go the way of ancient Rome.

Your huddled masses,
still forsaken,
feed off of your iron teat.
The drips and drabs
offered to court
and cultivate the freshest meat,
and light a spark
inside a heart.
Until they start to overeat.
Bubbles burst
in our temperate home:
they're slowly turning up the heat.

I'm going to die, and it's your fault.
If you were anything else,
I'd've done you the favour of sugar coating it.
But you're not, and I am, and it is.

You're a giant,
and you try to fit in with the regular sized people,
but you end up stepping on them.
I'd pity you if I weren't in the shadow of your boot.

Some of the people beneath you scream and flee in terror,
but your ears are too far away to hear them,
so you continue your march forwards anyway.
It's no wonder no one journeys here anymore.

This quaint little village is my home,
and I would rather die than leave it.
It used to be your home too,
now you dare not look back. For what?

I would love for you to come home.
I would love for you to be a part of the place where you grew up,
but I don't think it matters to you anymore.
At least in the way that it will always matter to me.

I know it's futile,
and I know these words are far too small for you to read,
and I know that you can no longer hear my screams,
but I need you to know that it's not too late to come back home.

But it will be, soon.

In 1908, on his second attempt, a young Austrian was accepted to an art academy in Vienna.
Later, in 1955, through a simple miscalculation, biology professor Earnest Smith accidentally creates a virus that infects humans and causes illness.
Symptoms include profuse sweating and a chesty cough.
After a few days, the victim's brain swells for a period of up to 48 hours, pressing against the skull, rendering its victims brain damaged or dead.
This virus swept through the school, then the local community, the country, and the world.

Chaos dominates.
Entropy inhabits every moment,
forwards and backwards,
inside and out,
and nothing can or ever will be the same
from one moment to the next.
Many have attempted to control the infinity in which we exist,
and all have failed,
for entropy cannot be accounted for.
To even comprehend infinity is folly,
to comprehend entropy is folly,
to comprehend is folly.
We may sleep comfortably in the knowledge that tomorrow has been predicted,
that the waves will form in perfect form,
but the ocean beds are littered with shipwrecks and skeletons.
To overlook entropy is natural,
and necessary,
for tomorrow is never guaranteed,
and the response to this certainty should be our immediate end.

As the hosts of the virus perished at speed, so too did the virus itself.
Those who remained mourned the loss of their loved ones, and attempted to repair those it had left catatonic.
This increased humanity's resolve in developing new technologies.
A century later, and this event was largely forgotten, as mankind enjoyed the fruit that were born from this fertilised soil.
This evolution of man and machinery ultimately led to the development of time travel.
Naturally, there were those who sought to use this technology to fulfil their hedonistic desires.

The past passed,
and yet remains present.
What once was is absolute and indefinite
and still in flux.
A fluctuation of war and peace,
virtue and sin,
darkness and light,
and there is so very much of both
because the good cannot exist without the bad.
The universe hangs in the balance of the unknown
and the scales are so heavily weighted at both ends
that the slightest imbalance will cause catastrophe.
Cataclysm permeates the thin membrane of all that is known
and none of us will make it out alive.

In 2055, Noah Smith developed an affinity for the art of the early 20th century and was granted the opportunity to visit the time period.
Later, in 1908, Noah met with Christian and Alois in Vienna to discuss the latest batch of potential applicants to their academy.
This proved a fantastic opportunity to learn from some of the artists Noah admired most.
Eventually, the works of a young man whose art Christian had seen before is displayed to Noah.
The time traveller identified this piece, and conveyed his distaste towards it.
Christian and Alois agreed, and the applicant was denied entry.

There once was a boy lost in a warzone armed with nothing but a knife,
running as fast as his little legs could carry him
while his feet sank deeper into the mud with every step.
Planes flying overhead collide,
raining burning shrapnel and debris onto the battlefield.
Explosions,
like fireworks,
echo from distant valleys the child had only dreamt of.

Thoughts raced through his mind of the paradise he was promised,
of the storge he thought in store for him.
The field seemed endless.
Perhaps it was.
With no knowing how long remained until sanctuary,
the boy collapsed to his knees,
took the knife,
and saved himself from pain.

I am saint and I am sinner.
I am pure and I am befouled.
I am power and I am weakness.
I am victor and I am vanquished.

I am loved and I am hated.
I am friend and I am foe.
I am royal and I am a peon.
I am mighty and I am tiny.

I am a multitude and I am singular.
I am the protagonist and I am an extra.
I am the audience and I am the act.
I am comedy and I am tragedy.

I am brave and I am a coward.
I am strength and I am weakness.
I am hopeful and I am full of despair.
I am lustful and I am disgusting.

I am rich and I am impoverished.
I am glutinous and I am starved.
I am opulent and I am barren.
I am proud and I am ashamed.

I am a genius and I am a fool.
I am able and I am incapable.
I know all and I know nothing.
I see all and I see nothing.

I am capable of total contradiction and I am unable to reconcile these contradictions.

Through trials, troubles, tribulations,
times echo across the nations.
The deaths, we're told, were valiant ones
so they're giving school teachers guns.

I'm yet to tell what'll crumble first,
my body, or my soul?
A wicked spell of discordance cursed
the me that once was whole.

Empty eyes, ears, and heart,
forget me not, and then we part.
The rhythm to fall apart.
A cadence to stall.

The nightmares start when I wake up,
and fall and rise forevermore.
Dragged 'cross shards of broken glass
to fill the void and tear it down
and down and down and down
and down and down and
down and down and
down and down
and down
and

...

The sun will rise, it always does,
to bring that morning caffeine buzz.
Eyes that, once, were sealed shut,
cracked open like a hazelnut.
Light floods in and the night floods out
as ideas, like flowers, start to sprout.
A heart that, once, was shrivelled, dying,
thinks that it might be worth trying.
Empty pockets, resupplying
a life that turned electrifying.
No more tears and fact denying,
forever now, we live, undying!

I thought, once, that I was crying.
Now, it seems that I am flying.

A pile of plain white napkins sits on the polished chrome countertop of a hotdog van.
The topmost napkin is plucked from the pile,
used to wipe the red from a man's face,
and promptly discarded.

Later, a woman snatches a stack of napkins from the pile,
and places them in her bag.
She returns to her car and stuffs the pile in the pocket of the door.
They will remain untouched for months, until she sells her car for an upgrade.

A young scientist takes a small pile of napkins and forces them into their pocket.
Later that day, they will etch impossible designs on the paper,
and upon the realisation their experiments are unrealistic,
will use the napkins to fill their recycling bin.

An artist passes by and, inspired, takes a handful of napkins.
They stick the napkins to a canvas, crumpled for texture, and paint over them.
The artwork will be sold to a collector
and kept in private storage for a century.

A strong breeze sets loose the final few napkins from the countertop.
They drift down the dank and dreary street,
their edges shredding on the dull grey of the concrete.
They land in a puddle.

Over the course of the coming days,
they will be stepped on by dozens of feet,
and whisked into a pulp.
From the earth they came, and to the earth they return.

Once upon a time a little voice inside my head visited my dreams.
The stage: a home I do not know, but adore the architecture.
A city filled with life, with none of it looking at me.
If heaven was a place on earth, it'd surely feel like this.

Once upon a time a little voice inside my head sang me to my sleep.
More frequently than I would like, the storm became a maelstrom and I was lost at sea.
Her words were not a beacon - a storm passes when it chooses.
Instead, they formed an anchor while I was shielded, safe below.

Once upon a time a little voice inside my head whispered truths that I could not.
The gates of hell had never seemed so very close,
but her wisdom was strength, and her mind was all mine,
and before I could realise, we broke free from our bonds.

Once upon a time...

Life cannot be beautiful if it lasts forever. Impermanence is in the nature of a universe that, too, will die.
The sun must set to let the stars come out to play, and their chorus is infinitely more beautiful.
These spheres continue to sing a melody without end.
I wish you could hear it with me.

Thank you.

If I am to die, let it be atop a hill on which I was proud to stand.
Let me be soaked in the blood of that which opposed me.
Let my final breath be my best.
Let my legacy blow forth on the winds,
to inspire those who dare follow my footprints down that treacherous path
to succeed where I could not.
Let them be victorious in their journeys.
Let them succeed in their quest, and slay the beast I failed to.
Let me look upon them, and smile.

Life, I thought was for the taking.
I prefer my heart stirred, not shaking.
The danger of humanity's infinite lust
is the betrayal of, once, unshaken trust.

To eros is human. To philia, divine,
and there's not enough of either in just one lifetime.
With baited breath, in fear I might meet
the one who'll induce my final heartbeat.

The one who'll sing their fervent song,
and hold an embrace just a little too long.
And when it's all over, with eyes of a doe,
looks up at me with her heart all aglow.

To make my heart overflow with glee,
mind, body, and soul as strong as can be.
To be pleased at the sight of a bumblebee,
and be just as happy as she makes me.

To keep up a smile when books come up red,
to pop the champagne when we cruise the med'.
To have when we chose to stay in instead,
and to hold my hand upon my deathbed.

The theory of quantum entanglement of remote particles says that two particles, any distance apart in space, can be connected.
In effect, whatever force is applied to one particle affects the other, no matter the distance between them.
This behaviour cannot be explained by our current understanding of the mechanism that governs our universe, yet it is an empirical fact that this behaviour exists.

It only stands to reason that some of these particles made their way into our bodies.
After all, we eat the same foods, drink the same water, breathe the same air.
And by cosmic accident, perhaps you and I share this quantum link.
This is why our hearts beat in perfect synchronisation.

I stand on the precipice of oblivion.
The foundations, dreamt eternal, crumble now.
And I step forwards.
Falling through the black and the nothing,
my only company my worst enemy.
I turn to him for companionship.
Silence. Nothing.
Panic, shock, and fear.
Until the dawn, there's nothing left for me here.

I awaken, aching, on a thousand-mile beach.
My body covered in sand and dust
that I know will never leave me.
I taste the salt as it rides upon the air,
binding the dust to my skin,
the embers of a million journeys.
The scars of lineage, I carry them forth.
My ancestors see me and harden my resolve
as the waves lap at my feet.

How much longer can I go on?
The siren calls echo louder and louder,
yet I refuse to surrender.
Cowardice remains my only option
while my divine purpose remains unfulfilled,
and yet my Vision is clouded by the overcast sky.
How far have I come?
My footprints are washed away
as quickly as I create them.

How many others have trodden this path?
Am I the alpha or the omega?
Regardless, I remain alone.
A crack of thunder wakes me up
and my pace turns brisk,
running towards quantum sanctuary.
I know where I've been,
and I cannot go back.
There's no knowing where I'm going.

The wind blusters through my hair,
and the waves crash higher and higher,
I seek sanctuary or surrender,
but I must not relent,
for the scars of my ancestors rely on me to bear their names,
etched on me to etch onto others,
and continue the cycle evermore,
and to walk, and run, and fall, and crawl,
and walk, and run, and fall, and crawl, and...

The air clears.
The clouds part,
and the thunder stops.
The waves retreat,
and the siren is silenced,
and my scars burn to embers.
The sand turns to dust,
then to nothing.
I am all that remains.

I blink, and I return to the precipice.
I know now who I am.
I am all that remains.

I walk along the beach and see
another set of footprints beside me.
My empty body becomes the host
for the echoes of a distant ghost.

The sights and sounds, and smells and tastes
that lie under the sun...
I miss them.
I want to feel everything.
I need to feel everything.
The coarse and hard, the squishy and soft,
the fire and the water, the earth and the air,
the love and the rage, the joy and despair...
I miss them.

I lie awake at night,
pirouetting in the heat of the midsummer,
dreaming of the moment the other shoe drops
so that I can put it on.
I'd sign a deal with the devil
or some divine deity
for the chance to push a different boulder up a different hill,
and when it rolls back down,
I'd smile.
I miss smiling.

To live is to regret.
All paths, bar one, remain untraveled,
yet the greatest lie is that they did not lead to enlightenment.
For the truth is they don't need to.
The journey is, and always has been, the destination.
And yet, I miss it.

Within my reach, ever so close,
that eerily familiar ghost.
Upon my cheek she lays a kiss.
She's everything that I will miss.

Created by:

Michael Tronnolone

With thanks to:

Rachel Draper
Kayleigh Buck
Megan Ryan

And thanks to the following people for providing their photography:

Riya Saspara
Joseph Doogan
Devon Rogers
Sophie Hawton
Tania Jeffries
Caterina Tronnolone
Stephen Sheehan-Dunne
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration
@SandyChing of Unsplash
@ArtistsEyes of Unsplash

And an extra special thanks to:

You, for reading.
This work means the world to me.
I hope I have managed to create something that resonated with you.
Thank you so very, very much.