The flood lamps blinked on in a torrent of streaming bright light, illuminating the single dark track, walled on either side. At the finish a single box held seats, the remainder of the vast stadium empty. Footsteps echoed off the walls and three figures entered the solitary box via a previously unseen door, the light from the corridor beyond casting long shadows,silhouetting the figures. As the door snapped shut, the noise revrbatated throughout the arena, a gunshot in a church. A hush of intense calm fell as the footsteps approached the box, contrasting the sharp noise of just moments before. As one, the men sat, three world leaders wearing the same severe expression; of anticipation. The forth and final seat was left empty out of respect; a tribute to the lost country. Tension crackled through the air between the men, their hurried truce seeming evermore fragile. The moment passed, the men settling back in their high backed seats, to watch the race. A race which would change the earth, and result in a second empty seat.
I watched them from above, clinging in the shadows of the top tier, waiting. Looking upwards, I saw the boundary where the prodtecitve bubble ended and the endless smog of the atmosphere began. Disdainfully, I returned my gaze to the dark stadium with its three occupants, purposely unaware of the problems they had caused.
React!