Ruienlust

Apamea, on the Orontes

I walked down the colonnaded avenue, feeling the wind on my face as it rushed across the plains. I felt the crushing loneliness of the landscape and my heart instantly yearned for some form of human contact. But there was none. As I looked up, I saw pedestals built into the columns where statues of great men from before used to stand, watching over the lesser who pass below them. Now the statutes are gone, displaced by wild plants and birds, probably encased in a museum where they are being watched over instead. Time has a way of turning things on its head. I knew I was in search of something, perhaps an answer. Hopeful that those that came before had left me a key to decipher the vagaries of modernity. But now I know I hoped in vain. For there is nothing left but ruins, ruined.