The tank bakes in the desert sun. The rivets are all melting, dripping into the sand. The barrel droops like a dead cock. Once it pointed straight, and spit hot death at unwilling lovers. All of that is forgotten now. Synthetic liquids boil inside of cracked rubber tubing and try to explode. A marching band sweats in a great line, knees rising and sinking. The tuba player collapses first and his skin sizzles like droplets on a hot pan when it hits the sand. Thunder magic has been silent for as long as anyone can remember, and the air is clear, like a prism, like a perfect crystal, and the sun is the center of a vast alien timepiece. And the center of the sun houses millions of ghosts, and they strain at a great dynamo, and it spins, spins, spins. Faster, faster still. In ten thousand years, hundred-foot soldiers will smother this place, pull all memory of what’s happened from the air and shred it and bury it deep underground; even now they approach. Maybe then the ghosts will rest. For now the ancient ways boom out from the tank with a muffled rattle as shells cook off inside.