IRS Office

The room is windowless and gray.  There are gray fabric paneled cubicle walls, gray carpeting, and a low ceiling.
The center of the large square room is lined with eight rows of chairs.  The chairs are padded and covered with a patchwork fabric design in deep purple hues.  Each seat is latched to the chair beside it by a metal hook along its edge, creating straight rows of eight. 
Along the periphery of the room are cubicles separated by thick gray fabric covered walls. Each separated desk faces the center of the room, though there are walls designed like sliding doors which can be opened or closed. 
There are three cubicles that are open, the rest are blocked by the portable walls.  There is one woman behind each visible desk, each with varying pale skin tones, but with the same portly figure and plump cheeks. 
The desks are gray and long and uniform.  There is a computer with a raised glowing screen and a wired telephone.  Each different desk is decorated with the snapshots of loved ones and tiny figurines and mugs full of pencils. 
Behind the perimeter of desks is another narrow perimeter of walking space which allows movement from desk to desk or easy reference to the several bookcases full of thick tax code books and reference material.
Beside the front door is a black man sitting behind the oversized receptionist desk.  A rope barrier starts at the door and leads towards the reception desk, forcing anyone who might enter the double glass doors to head in one direction.  As patrons enter he hands each one a paper number and motions for them to watch the glowing screen with red numerals. 
Mounted to one of the walls is a large flat screen tv, it faces the rows of chairs and is tuned to a news station.  Close-captioned subtitles move across the bottom of the screen and there are no speakers. Half a dozen people sit scattered among the chairs, each holding a number and staring straight ahead into the glowing monitor. 
Mumbled voices and the muted tap of the women typing on their keyboards is the only sound.

Ruined City

I sit in the backseat of a car, the deep red plush fabric of the seats are dim in the night. A young woman is in the driver’s seat, her hands gripping tightly on the wheel. Her pale skin, her long light brown hair, they are colors and shapes that dance on the edges of my vision as I lean forward, looking into the night that casts everything in its dark cloak.
I am leaning forward, my body pushing on the firm restraint of a seatbelt, its promise of safety meaningless in the scene before me. Within the car, the pungent smell of adrenaline mixes with the noxious fumes of exhaust, sulfur and fear.
We are alone on this road. Alone in the stillness of this night. I stare through the spotted windshield to a scene of wreckage. My breathing is shallow, and though both car windows are closed, the cold night air finds the skin of my cheeks.
A freeway ramp climbs before us. A gentle incline rises and rises, then curves slightly to the left, headed towards the city that lies beyond the black bay. The two-lane ramp is pock-marked with the craters of dropped bombs, and the raised rings around the small mounds of asphalt continue to crumble. Around each crater are small chunks of tar, tiny pebbles, and fine black dust. The craters dot both lanes liberally, the remains of tiny bombs that fell here some time ago.
Beyond the ramp, rising from the dark city below that casts not one light, is a nearly destroyed building. The intact side still smooth and angular, a remnant of a no-nonsense style of architecture that focused on function and efficiency in a space that was densely populated. But half of the building is gone, a monstrous bite into the hard flesh of its structure. Spikes of rebar and electrical wire spill from the chunks of crumbling gray concrete. What’s left of it is at least twenty stories high, though it seems close to collapsing.
Despite its devastation, there are signs of life in the building, little yellow signals that speak silently into the night. Half a dozen windows in the intact section glow, sending out the message that there are still those that breathe in the forgotten mess.

Suspended

The water of the bay is dark blue with a deep undertone of green that emerges from the caverns below the surface in hints and whispers. Small gasps of green explode on the tips of little water ripples as they rise and fall second after second after second, small moments of watery life and death as it moves over the predominantly calm surface of the bay. There is no tanker or sailboat in sight, just the wide blueness of the bay as it stretches into the horizon.
To the northwest, the San Francisco skyline is ten miles in the distance and I can see the hazy purple silhouette of the tallest buildings as they rise from an obscure mist of pale fog at their base. Behind the buildings, rays of sunlight manage to stream in through hazy white cloud cover. Bright bursts of gold sunlight shines down in long streams of gleaming brightness, filling in the background of the city.
To my left, just a few hundred feet from me, is the long metal bridge that connects the land of San Francisco to the land east of the bay. The bridge is two stories, with eastbound traffic on the lower level and westbound on the top. There is never a break in the flow of cars and the rushing movement of motorized machines gurgles like a river in the distance.
The bridge is so close I could almost jump to it, but I am on another surface. I am on a wooden platform, suspended over the water of the bay by two ropes that hold me and the platform above the water’s surface. On each side of the platform, in the center, is a hole. A yellow fibrous rope has been strung through each of the holes and is held in place with a thick knot below the platform. The ropes rise and rise and are eventually covered by the white layer of clouds. I cannot see what they are attached to, I cannot see what holds me.
Because of my weight and the design of the structure with only two ropes, the platform has tilted to one side and I hold onto the yellow ropes as best as I can to keep from falling into the water. I alternate between looking at the water and looking for the source of the ropes in the clouds. The green and blue ripples of the water rise up and down, like the painted figures on a carousel.

Steeple

The sun reached its peak hours before and the light that now spills over the city is gold and fleeting. The walls of the many downtown buildings glow in a muted shade of orange and the sky above has turned a shade of pale blue that only holds the promise of darkness to come. There are no clouds, just endless pale blue. The street is wide and made of multiple lanes of traffic going in both directions. The city is a mixture of ancient and new, old edifices and architecture combined with new street lamps and signs. The street itself is covered with a fresh black layer of asphalt, but the sidewalks on the side are old cobblestone, worn to a shiny finish from years of use. Modern buses wait patiently in traffic beside buildings hundreds of years old. The street is exact and completely straight, breaking from its course only when it meets perpendicularly with another wide road at an intersection. Each lane is full of cars. They wait bumper to bumper, occasionally letting out a desperate honk that does nothing to move the cars ahead of them along. Dark exhaust streams from the back of the city buses. They wait as still as the cars and nearly hidden inside them are scores of passengers that stare out from the tinted windows with a mixture of helplessness and resigned desperation, unable to do anything to change their fate. An occasional motorcycle weaves its way through the congestion, finding the small pockets of space within the mess of metal and exhaust and beeping exasperation of horns. It is not just crowded streets, the sidewalks on either side of the traffic are full of pedestrians. Many of them are tourists, clinging to their maps and cameras and staring open-mouthed at the architecture. There are large baroque buildings that take up entire blocks and between them are grand cathedrals on every other corner. The tourists walk in small groups, adorned with hats and water bottles. Locals weave through them like motorcycles, finding the spaces between the gawking groups of picture-happy tourists. One of the oldest buildings in the downtown area is an old church with a long, narrow steeple made of metal. The building itself is constructed from bricks and rises five stories high. On the body of the building, but close to the steeple, are open square windows. Inside the windows, within the church, are the silhouettes of old people. The church building sways softly in the wind, moving slightly to the right and left, then forwards and backwards.

The Plaza

The early evening light is the palest of blues. It marks closing time, the end of another cycle of light, to be replaced by twelve hours of darkness. The sun has just begun to fall behind the wall of straight buildings. Dozens and dozens of them make the city skyline. There are the large mirrored homes of finance that reach towards the clouds, the more squat government buildings and the high-rise condos marked on each level by balconies. Interspersed among the modern buildings are the few brick constructions that have managed to survive earthquakes and fires. Adorned with the marks of their craftsmen, they contrast with the straight, sleek lines of modern architecture.
Cutting through the clustered marks of men are geometrical streets. Black and marked with yellow lines, the roads sit without the faintest curve, providing only 90 degree angles in evenly divided intervals. The low golden sun shines against the reflected glass of the downtown buildings like light on sequins, calling out for one last acknowledgment before it says goodnight. Ample rectangles and squares shine like electric gold with its last rays.
The downtown streets are bustling. Men in dark tailored suits and women wearing black heels and fitted skirts flow out of the buildings and into the crowded sidewalks. They are like rivers that ebb and flow with the alarm clock’s set intervals.
In the middle of the financial center is a large cement plaza. The periphery of the plaza is a single row of green grass and sparsely planted trees that are thin and tall as some of the shortest buildings. Two sides of the plaza have buildings that create a wall behind it, but the other two connected sides are open and face two streets perpendicular from each other.
One of the open sides has a single doorway with an open wrought iron gate. The doorway is made of stacked rocks and mortar, but the long walls around it have fallen long ago, leaving only the frame of the doorway and the tall gate itself.
The flow of business people walk through the square diagonally, coming from the corner beside the wall and the street and flowing out through the wrought iron gate. Close to the center of the plaza is a young blond woman with a microphone. She is talking and pointing to the moveable statue of a thick man with a trombone held to his mouth. Coming out of the trombone is a large fake tuna fish. A small crowd of business people are gathered around the woman and the statue. They are laughing at each pause in her speech, nearly doubling over with her jokes.

Red Light

The bright light of early afternoon has blanketed the one-way city street. There are an assortment of semi- tall buildings and skyscrapers, some are sleek and new, their mirrored windows reflecting the perfect blue sky. Other are smaller, only ten stories high, remnants from an early period of architecture and city planning, the building faces are decorated with colorful tile work, geometric brick patterns, and wrought iron gates. The street is composed of three lanes, and I sit idling in the center lane, waiting at a red light. My hands are resting on the top of my steering wheel, gripping it out of habit. Within the small cab of my black truck, I feel the heat of the day amplified by the windshield. I am wearing a low cut T-shirt, and the exposed skin on my chest is warm and red from the sunlight. To my right is a man in a silver car, his hairy arm hangs out the window, his pudgy hand holds a burning cigarette. The smell surrounding me is a mix of smoke, car exhaust, and asphalt.
To my left is a liquor store, a black man in a black beanie emerges from the store with a poorly disguised vodka bottle in a paper sack. A short white man wearing a gray sweatshirt stands outside the entrance, smoking a cigarette. He looks up and down the street often, squinting his eyes with each inhalation. On the other side of the street is a small office supply store and an abandoned-feeling real estate office. Men in business suits move quickly on the sidewalks, a woman in a knee length brown skirt pushes a baby carriage toward the city center, and delivery men come and go with carts full of perishables.
My car window is open, and the sounds of accelerating cars and muffled ranchero music enters the space. There is a man pressed against my car. He is leaning in my window, his hands holding onto the steering wheel. As our eyes lock, he alternates between a human form, with distinguishable features and then, into a shadowy body with no face. He wears all dark clothes, black pants and a black hooded sweatshirt, and atop his bald head is a black hat. I smell his clothes, dirty and reeking of staleness. His face alternates from one of blackness without any shape to one of olive skin and a vague, stubbly beard. When he has eyes, they are dark brown and piercing, his eyebrows are thick with many long stray hairs turning away from any clear formation. He holds the wheel firmly with no intention of letting go.

The Roaring Silence

The room is on the third floor of an office building that is 6 stories tall. It is an office space that is nearly empty and lacking any kind of expected adornments. The floor is covered in a slightly dirty, dark blue carpet. The windows are about 5 feet tall and 4 feet wide. They open by sliding the glass up. They are all open right now. A gentle breeze filters through the room, flowing from one open window to another. The hallway door is open as well and so are the elevator doors beyond, the emergency lights quietly flashing on and off. On one corner there are cut telephone wires hanging out of the wall and the shadows of desks and file cabinets can still be detected on the carpet. There are long fluorescent lamps above us, attached to the white ceiling, all turned on, all throwing off a soft hum that reverberates throughout the space and resonates with the sound of the wind outside.
On the street below there are no cars, nor the distant sound of them. Across from our window, there are other windows, other buildings. All the windows are open, all are silent and welcoming of the breeze that flows in from the street. There are no pedestrians, no sound of people calling or complaining, no children crying, no hint of rush or conflict, no human activity at all. The traffic lights are flashing on and off for nobody. Many little pieces of paper blow all about the city. I can’t make out the text, but they all have the same thing printed on them. A neon sign is crackling just outside the window and the sound of our breathing acts as a calm soft ostinato to its constant electric variation. The sky is bright purple and there are no stars and no sun and no moon. It is too light to be night and too purple to be day.
He sits on a small metal chair across from me. He is about 25 years old, a bit heavy set, with a round friendly face, thick arms laced with muscle and a round belly. He is wearing a white t-shirt, blue jeans and tennis shoes. There are some tattoos on his arms and a scar on his lower neck. His face is overgrown with the beginning of a beard and his hair is cut very short, mostly brown with just a hint of yellow. His eyes are clear and wide open and so is his mouth. He breathes in slowly and with some effort. It takes all the will that he can muster to remain in the chair and stay calm. I can see that the corners of his eyes long to look out the windows once more, to confirm what he has seen, to try to visually come up with some kind of explanation, something that will make it all clear and understandable.
I sit on a small wooden stool and I also breathe very slowly and with some difficulty. I am wearing a white buttoned up shirt, black corduroy pants and black shoes. I have a long scraggly beard and very long black hair, tied up in a pony tail. I wear a circular medallion under my shirt, a metal talisman with a tiny pyramid at its center. My arms are at my sides and my hands rest on my lap. My knees are together and I make recurring efforts to maintain them in place. My eyes are also wide open and staring deeply into my companion’s eyes. We both can sense the delicate nature of the situation, the crawling wave of fear and panic that threatens to break us apart. Neither of us gives in to it.
We both continue to breathe, as deeply and as slowly as possible. The breeze lifts little strands of hair over our faces and tickles at our nose. The hum of the lights seems to hint at a deeper drone, something heavier coming up from deep underneath us, something that is too complete, too final and too powerful to be allowed completely into this room, into this space between us, right now. Each time the drone gets louder, his eyes widen a bit and mine do as well. I nod ever so slightly, we breathe together and the drone descends again, fading into the soft hum of the lights. The breeze blows between us again and we exhale, savoring a tiny moment of relative rest.
The drone, the solitude, the bright purple sky, the roaring silence, the little pieces of paper that constantly fly by the window… all like the very peak of an enormous wave that threatens to overwhelm us and take us with it, along with everything around us, dissolving us into the indistinct void from which we were originally formed. We sit together at the very peak of this awesome force beyond our comprehension and we slowly… ever so slowly and gently… take another breath.

Two Hundred Feet Above the Earth

On the brightest of sunny days, a flying contraption soars on a current of crisp blue wind. At about two hundred feet above the earth, it coasts, like an oversized time machine on a rogue mission. Its speed is high, and it easily leaves behind the flocks of white birds on their yearly migration.
The pilot is a mystery, whether man or machine, I cannot tell, but the contraption flies well, maintaining its smoothness and speed amongst the aggressive wind. I sit upon a wooden bench at the helm, a rickety old fence post once stolen from a neighbor’s yard. There is no floor, and my legs dangle loosely over the seat, each new gust of air sends them swinging wildly, like the limbs of my companion.
The machine is small and compact, made mostly of copper tubing, sheets of metal and a huge brightly colored air balloon which keeps us afloat. It looks like a lunatic’s invention, created quickly from a doodle using found scrapes and stolen debris. It has traveled far to make this journey, centuries or more, but there is an excitement that permeates the whole of it, blanketing us in newness and innocence. The wind feels like a friend playing upon our skin, the birds wink in our direction. This is a maiden voyage, clean from any past experience. All is new, and from this flight, we will not be returning.
We are directly above a city. A potpourri of structures stretches to the horizon in all directions, a striking mixture of large and small buildings, civic centers, offices, houses, museums, and monuments. This is the eternal civilization- the one that has spawned countless poor imitations. This is Rome as it could have been. This is the city philosophers have spoken of…the ideal city thought only to exist as concept. The edifices shine, scrubbed clean and glowing in every possible glory. Their hues are soft and inviting, only the palest shades of marble have been used in their construction. Under the light of the full sun, everything is immaculate. Stretching to eternity, the avenues are precise and wide, dividing the immense landscape into navigable blocks. They are so clean…so exact. Their possessive symmetry shouts far into the sky and reaches my ears. The best engineers and mathematicians have created these roads and I am breathless in the precision of their art.

A City Corner

It is a noisy, dirty corner in the heart of a large city. The streets that meet here are both wide, full of heavy traffic and constantly covered in groups of pedestrians walking back and forth from one sidewalk to the other. A large truck is double parked on the southeastern side, three men sit on the edge of the bed and a large mechanical dolly sits on the sidewalk, unused. Two men walk from east to west, drinking from bottles covered in paper bags, loudly discussing the events of the day. An older woman, wearing a large blond wig and a tight mini skirt, smokes by the donut shop on the north western corner. A neon sign of a nude woman blinks in and out from the covered front window of a massage parlor that stands next to a freshly painted liquor store on the northeastern corner. A little boy grabs onto his mother’s hand, dragging a plastic bag behind him, gently sobbing away the remains of a heartfelt tantrum.
On the south western corner there is a one story complex. A small adult shop is embraced on both sides by a single dilapidated house that wraps around it. It has two facades, leading to either street, both with a little forgotten porch covered in trash and solid steel gates.
The adult shop has only four faded porno tapes on its window, the lost glories of never quite beautiful women that have long lost their battle for men’s attention and are now forgotten symbols of wasteful dispersal that fail in their weak attempt at temptation. Inside the shop, behind the counter, is an older bearded man wearing a baseball cap and reading the newspaper. A TV screen behind him shows intense intercourse between a black man and a blond girl, the volume turned down while the radio blares out right wing talk radio and old rock and roll songs. The man groans every once in a while and turns the page. Two Latin men stare at a magazine and make whispered comments. An older single man in a black overcoat carefully runs through the many video sections, scanning every title and every so often grabbing a box and putting it under his arm. A sweaty brown skinned man stands by the dark door that leads to the private booths, anxiously staring at each of the men that walk in and out of the store. Another door, dusty and forgotten between rows of video tapes and plastic dildos, leads to the larger residence that surrounds the place.
The house is shaped like a thick L, with each end crowned by an elegant wooden door that leads to the outside. Inside, the light is low and shaded in red and green. At the corner of the "L" there is a long table, covered in a ripped and stained tablecloth, where two women and two men sit on small metal chairs. One woman prepares a crack pipe, wearing only a slip over a pair of tight shorts, while one of the men, a skinny older Caucasian wearing thick glasses and a sleeveless undershirt, anxiously stares and waits. The other two angrily discuss their current situation, always precarious, always on the brink of a complete catastrophe that has already started but never quite comes to an end. The man is a middle aged Latino, wearing jeans and a buttoned up shirt. The woman is older and hints of sadness and deep resignation recurrently wash over her wrinkled face. She wears a black T-shirt and a ripped red skirt.
Behind the table, there is a broken door that leads to a long bathroom. Inside, behind a ripped plastic curtain, there is a stretched out shower stall with three different shower heads, designed so that three or more bodies can bathe simultaneously. The tiled floor is covered in grime and smells of urine and sperm. A young boy sits on the ground, playing with tiny plastic soldiers, making soft explosive sounds with his mouth each time one the little figures gets shot. The only light that seeps into the bathroom comes from a high little window that also brings with it the constant wave of screams, curses and laughter that wash in from the alleyway outside.
In a small very dark room, the light banished with two layers of curtains and a thick old blanket taped to the window, a young Latin girl lies sleeping on a ripped up mattress. She is covered in cold sweat and wears only a thin summer dress. Her breathing is shallow and labored, her face squeezes painfully every few minutes and her dried tears have left a spider web of discolored makeup all over her cheekbones. Hanging on the wall close to her head there is a little wooden crucifix and taped up underneath it, the photograph of an older smiling woman with gray hair.
In one of the hallways that leads to the street, two shirtless teenage boys smoke marijuana and trade jokes and conspiracies amongst themselves. One of them has a large scar across his chest and a fresh bruise around his right eye. The other one has two fingers missing from his left hand and he uses the stumps to scratch his running nose. Using the joints as pointers, they discuss places and possibilities, people and betrayals, histories and legends. In their words, a trail of bubbling life pierces through the scratched up walls and the pungent smell of vomit that seeps in through the outer gates, along with loud horns, angry threats and a crackling radio playing an ancient song of harvest.

City in the Lake

The water is calm and flat, as it extends in all directions. To the north, it ends in great mountains, cold purple behemoths of rock and sand, desolate stretches that stand as magnets to the imagination but hold impenetrable obstacles for the body. To the east, the lake ends in a great water fall, a fall so high that all the tons of water that slide off the cliff disperse into vapor and nothingness halfway down the wall. Of the bottom, little is known. Some will speak of great darkness, of a swamp of spherical rocks and dark obscene creatures that live beneath them. To the south, there is sunlight and commerce, a great port in the lesser waterfall that calmly and steadily descends to the lower lake and many smaller islands bathing in the endless sunlight of the vast unknown above the great white cliffs. To the west, there is only the great darkness of the tall cliffs that extend beyond comprehension, high above the clouds and the reach of a man’s eye.
In the middle stands the city. Clearly delineated by white walls, a clean rectangle in the midst of the calm water, buzzing with activity yet maintaining a perennial tranquility. There are large gates on each side, heavy stone stairways leading down to the clear liquid surface and beneath it. A few piers extend outwards on the side of the gates. Most of the active ones are on the southern side. People run back and forth from the piers to the gates and back again. They carry large packages on their backs and push wooden carts. There are no animals to help with the burden. Small boats are tied to the piers and loaded with clothes, tools, books… the many things that can only be constructed in the heart of the quiet city.
The walls are white but show the many cuts, bruises and scars of the centuries. Men walk above them, holding weapons at the ready. They are dressed in dark silver armor and long flowing black capes. They carry themselves with great discipline, following predetermined paths as they make their way on the top of the walls. On each side of each gate stands a circular tower, where several of the guards converge. They stand around metal cannons that extend upwards, ready to shoot up towards the air. The cannons are kept clean, polished and ready even through they haven’t been used in so long that there is no record of their purpose in any recorded memory. The guards ceremonially stand around them, looking up towards the heavens, their eyes rarely getting distracted by the call of the mountains to the north or the distant roar of the waterfall to the east.
Inside the city, there are elevated streets that run over each other in complex configurations. There are walkways that stretch from high tower to high tower, where men in white robes walk back and forth, discussing the finer aspects of an old philosophical argument, or the implications of a new poem that has just been circulated among them. The tall towers end in open circular terraces that are mostly quiet and empty. Sometimes a man sits alone, thinking and writing. Sometimes a couple drapes themselves in a white sheet and make love beneath the open sky. Sometimes three men stand and chant together, a song of an unknown language lost to recorded time.
At the lowest levels of the city, there are great factories where the raw matter that is brought into the city is transformed into new configurations. Men in dark brown clothes work tirelessly to complete their set goals and hand the new packages to the carriers. Some of these factories are made of several small sweaty rooms, some are large halls full of loud metal noises and bursts of chemical steam. The men inside bend over, their backs almost hunchbacked with the years of tireless work and toil. Their faces are full of marks and their eyes are dark with confused memory.
Towards the north side of the city, there are thicker buildings that are full of little apartments. There the bulk of the city’s families reside. The men are gone for days at a time, so the women find games to play with each other and with their children. They sometimes climb to the tall towers and find the empty circular terraces, they sometimes roam in the northern lake in little boats and hold secret meetings beneath the darkness of the purple mountains. In the basements beneath the buildings, they hold large gatherings where only women are allowed. Here they will tell their secrets and remember their own forgotten chants.
Seen from within it, the city is busy and full of noise and activity. From above, it is as calm and quiet as the lake that surrounds it. Tiny noises of work and happiness, a respite from the dangers and terrors that are told by the travelers from the east. I look at it all from the heights, moving things here and there. Placing a man here, shifting a boat there. Yesterday it was as it is today. Tomorrow it will be the same.

City Lights

The city lights glow phantom like behind pyramids of glass and steel, forging a luminescent backdrop. Outside the city’s glass walls, the night is cold and dark.
They huddle around a burning steel can, their faces orange in the glow. Their hats and gloves are colorful, mismatched, and grimy. Greasy locks of hair dangle from under the hats. Fingers poke out of the broken ends of gloves. Jagged toothed smiles are lit by the firelight like those of jack o lanterns.
They jest and laugh defiantly, their eyes glittering with the knowledge of the street and the dark and this space beyond civilization. In the distance, a woman is screaming. The sound is strangled out by its companion noise, something unintelligible, similar to snarling.
They hear it. It barely scratches their surface, registering in the eyes as a momentary dulling. They continue to talk and joke and drink from dented tin cups passed round. Out beyond them a sleek train runs over a raised rail, noiseless en route to the dignified citadel. Beneath its trestles the pitch blackness yawns in on itself and the snarling slides back into silence.

Panic in the City

High rise buildings in various somber shades cover the earth- dense in their geometric formations. There is smoke coming from one of the towers, shaped like a tall, thin pyramid, thick plumes of gray escape from its pointed peak, rushing to atmospheric freedom.

Surrounding me is panic, the road is consumed with chaos; cars are turning around, trucks are crossing lanes to exit, some speed towards the large bridge in the distance.
The burning gray figure looms close, the ominous vision that further turmoil is imminent.