A city wreathed in mist, or maybe the smoke from the many fires burning through the west.

Beautiful and yet hard to see, so close and so far at the same time, like sanity and normalcy these days. Will the craziness drift away, fade, and seem like a dim dream, or will the haze grow thicker, last longer, obscure the beauty until it too is just a memory?

That could be any city. The form is still strong, the steel and stone skeleton, and it is still teeming with life. But are those lives the same as they once were? Are they as good as they used to be, as good as they could be again?

The water still laps at the shore, the mountains still rise in the indistinct distance.

Information is still being spread out into the ether, but what confused information it is, squabbling like an old, unhappy married couple, calling each other liars until no one knows the truth anymore.

The bridge still connects the headlands, less traveled because of the sickness spreading faster than the wildfires over this world.

Time will pass, time will tell.

Life does go on. Strangely subdued people in masks still walk their dogs in the pale sunshine.

The vast water still sparkle, diluted by melting icecaps, and bereft of so many species.

The seagulls do not care who is in charge, knowing that civilizations come and go.

A living city will someday be just bones, sifted through by those to come.

In the times to come, other fishermen will come to the waters near this place… but what language will they speak, and what nation call their home?

Wow, I am really sorry that got so dark so fast.