I'm running along the window ledges of buildings, dodging the flowers that have grown in the cracks between indivdual blocks of granite.

Multi-colored lichen surrounds their bases, highlighting the flowers' triumph over the cold stone. They remind me that no one is around to care for these buildings and that nature, the wild, will gladly reclaim all that we have built.

A child plays an imaginary sport in the street below. The borrowed football pads too big on his small shoulders and wiry frame. He dodges around cars that have long sat still in the empty streets.

I hear the crack of a rifle shot and the screams as I approach the theater.

She comes running out and I know that I am too late.

"They've killed her," the daughter says in that too-wise voice of hers. "They've won."

I think that it can't be true, it can't be true, that baby was going to save us all.