Excerpt:

The voice has no sense of time or place, just a vague niggling that this is where it’s supposed to be -- where it has always needed to be. And during the in-between, it waits, watching the bodies on the conveyor belt going by and disappearing into the distance.

Springsummerfallwinter springsummerfallwinter springsummer --
Old stones, bloody stones. It can see distant images of handprints, footprints, feathers. But the courtyard is empty now, and some rain has come through the purified the gravel. Doesn’t matter, not really, but this would be easier if it hadn’t.
At first it thinks that it’s made a mistake, that it’s alone, but as it begins to close its consciousness, it sees them. Two.
One is crouching, prodding at the burned soil between the stones with one slender finger. It shakes its head, pulls up a blade of grass and cups it in a white hand. Smiling, the first fills its cheeks with air and blows, laughing musically when the other twitches.
“What --” the second begins to say, and then sees the greenery. Shaking its head, it flicks it away, and then asks, “What do you think?”
“What do I think?” the second repeats, and rises, wiping a loamy hand on worn pants. “I think that I can’t believe that we spent twenty years here,” it answers.
It’s time, the voice knows, and starts the conversation simply --
Hello.