Collective Heatsroke

168 days without rain and counting. The sun shone down with the intensity of a blow-torch and, slowly, everyone's heat control systems failed. As the last drops of moisture were sucked out of the earth, big cracks opened in the dusty earth and even the last of the mandacaru cacti began to shrink in the heat. With the onset of widespread heatstroke, the entire populace began to suffer from a sort of collective incoherence, and a sense of inebriation seeped slowly into the soft bones of the sertanejos.

While those who were still alive began to slip into a state of semi-consciousness, the dead began to raise their heads.

Some might say that they came back simply to fill the space left by the rapidly fading "living;" others may claim that they had been there to begin with, unnoticed by those too busy being alive but who could now meet them half way. The explanation is actually quite simple: in the last few months the wind had changed.