Summary

The speaker dreams that the sun has gone out and the world is plunged into darkness. There is no longer any distinction between day and night, and human beings are all miserable. They forget everything except prayers for the light to come back so they can be delivered from this misery. Everything: palaces, cities, it does not matter what – has been burned to the ground for warmth and light. Forests are burnt down. Human beings look strange in the dark, looking up at the empty sky. Animals, from birds to beasts to snakes, scream and suffer in the darkness. New wars break out, and people die, their bones unburied. Every dog but one eats their owners, and the last one only has a corpse to guard. That dog, too, eventually starves to death. The world is eventually emptied of all life, leaving nothing behind...