Remember the fearsome threatening time, before now? Before this new winter. When the world’s end was just a cold snap away? The fanatics all buttoned up in their cocoons, incubating their final outburst. Where was the enemy then? Over the sea, behind the walls, at missile’s reach, and without a specific face.

But now? Now he is gone and must be replaced, where is the enemy now?

We are downstairs, in the queue behind you in the shops, blocking the pavements with our wheelchairs, blackening the face of your blank canvas, praying differently to your god, and performing foul acts of depravity that look like another kind of love. And now we must tuck in tight to our chrysalises and hide from your fearsome thrashings in the undergrowth. Some of us will survive.

So, here we are still. You have not driven us away. We are your cancer, growing, fit to burst. We lie in wait for you. We will win.

Unless you drop your bombs, unleash your radiotherapy upon us first.

Then the world will carry on, a different place, perhaps thriving, once there is no more host to spread your disease.

But for now, where is the enemy? Where are you going to hunt him down?

Here I am, only a stranglehold away. Already choking.