zoocity

Wonderful passage from a wonderful book, Zoo City by Lauren Beukes

“The air pressure dips, like before a storm. A keening sound wells up soft and low, as if it’s always been there, just outside the range of human hearing. It swells to howling. And then the shadows start to drop from trees, like raindrops after the storm. The darkness pools and gathers and then seethes.

The japanese believe it’s hungry ghosts. The Scientologists claim it’s the physical manifestation of suppressive engrams. Some eyewitness reports describe teeth grinding and ripping in the shadows. Video recordings have shown only inpenetrable darkness. I prefer to think of it as a black hole, cold and impersonal as space. Maybe we become stars on the other side.

I turn away as it rushes down the road in the direction of the running man. Mr. Khan cover’s his daughters’ eyes, even though it’s her ears he should be protecting. The screaming only lasts a few awful seconds before it is abruptly cut off”