We thought it Over

Written 3/17/2008 0:25

Orange skies laced with streams of fire race against ashy cloud cover above my humbled, lowered head on a dawn rumbling. Thin white-blue veins of lightning inaudibly weave into the nebulous thunderhead layers. Borders of collected water brush against each other –clash, and intermarry, copenetrating, mingled, and where one’s hazy figure ends and another’s center lies is indistinguishable. Thicker, violet arteries of lightning roar to partition the sky. Suddenly a downpour obscures the tip of my nose. Something stinks. My boots must strain against the puddles to lift. These rainpools hold onto them like desperate unwanted lovers. The squelch, the viscosity, doesn’t belong to water. At the abrupt end of pitter-patter I see a world anointed in blood. Wind screams at me, a furious god. I fall with a gust that rips tree-roots from the ground, flips cars, and makes the air a leaf field. Now I taste the stench. A lump is on my right breast. It leaves with the sight of a blur leaping past. Ribbit. Regained feet let me see the mists have cleared out. Miles are visible. When I squint, the familiar lines of human architecture are recognizable in the distant pyre. A wind I can’t hear tears at this bon-fire, fed by a city, arcing tongues to the left.

The voice was one I’d attribute to a voice actor and/or digital effects. Upper register, continually humming with a sound like “eh”, the chords slightly ground together but not enough to be painful. “Sure is coming down today”. His face had been washed of color. The facial feature didn’t reveal prior race. Were a man has irises and pupils he had silvery orbs. After staring at them for a bit, if he didn’t move, variances in darkness within them resolved into a threadlike appearance. Cracks came from the noseward corners of his eyes as if he were a drunk. He held his mouth open but I didn’t hear him breathe through it or notice his chest move but movement’s hard to make out through so many layers of rags. Maybe he’s a diaphragm breather. On the metal parts of some machine I didn’t recognize he sat, ass to heels and hands to knees. Smiled at me like he was friendly.

Above the sky had been beaten into a cream of pale yellows, spreading out just above us, with some storms still out on the horizon and others audible. I didn’t know what to say. Maybe shock. I’d just been knocked on my ass. If he had been around…he didn’t look like he’d fallen recently.

“What do you think it’s all about?” he smiled at me again. A different sort, “hmmm”. I wasn’t his confidant. Wasn’t gonna be. Hopped down, “I reckon things’re done with now.” He lagged in his walk, pitching one foot diagonally in front of the other. “It’s the apocalypse-ragnarok”. He grabbed the front of his pants, by the thighs, and lifted them up while leaning forward nose near mine. He said, “what do you think about that?” and I was scared. Can’t say why but my chest recoiled a bit, kinda sad. I took a step back and looked diagonally to the right and bottom.

Things looked still where I was lookin’. A head-turn around showed a world where the storm had stopped. Everything had stopped. I flinched. He was gone. Flames stood still as a picture far-off and nothing moved but me and what I touched. Rocks small enough you could roll them between your fingers crunched under my steps then slowly carried their movement outward, jiggling other rocks, and the spread of movement became smaller as it split between surfaces until a can would rattle and I’d lose track or the move would hit something big and you’d see nothing happen. Things stayed like that while I had a look around and experimented. If I threw something really big, say a car door, I could see things twitch some yards away. I might lose track of where the movement spread to but sometimes, after a delay, something further-out from where the last twitter was seen would jerk.

…

Playing with rubble got boring. I went looking for someone living.

…

I got hungry. Started looking for something to eat. Saw grass, a handless forearm, and considered my options while a rat showed its’ vote gnawing on the forearm. It was immediately night and things were moving as they usually do before my stomach hurt. Want of food was actually great enough to be painful. I tried eating grass but it wasn’t filling. Why I satisfied my hunger how I did is something you’ll never understand. In part because I won’t tell. You wouldn’t -We thought Earth or humanity were done for or God was rolling up. Yet He hasn’t shown, we’re still here, and this planet’s name hasn’t been legally changed. I lost my leg but –hey, most lost their lives.