Temporary

The wind crept through like a cold hand across the field's, running invisible fingers through blades of grass high enough to reach your thigh. Nature has a way of moving in similar patterns and styles while going completely unnoticed.

Yet up here from the perch of a willow tree I can see it all, appreciate it all.

The smell of summer warm dirt and fresh grown grass. The comforting touch of sunlight against the back of my neck, the breeze reaching up to my perch gracefully pushing its fingers along the sweat on my brow.

The grass swayed with an oceans skills in long smooth waves. The crisp green a hard contrast to the dull gray sky above the tree tops. Beyond my mound of grass and dirt and trees there was a break in the smooth isles of ever green. A dark heavy shadow, like a lump of coal against the pastel of nature.

Serenity is only temporary...

Her words rang like wedding bells through my head making the world vibrate about me, my fingers tremble as their grip tightens on the sturdy branch. That's when their smell comes and I am fully aware of the break in peace.

It's all meaningless in the end, running is the life we live now.

Ain't that the truth....

Death has a scent that can clean your clock and polish your shoes before it ever fully hits you. You do not get use to it, you do not forget it. Those were facts we picked up after the first weeks.

The next emerald wave pushed on and the relaxing fingers combed through my hair, pushing past the thick knots and ignoring the clumps of filth and mess. Down below I saw the lumps of coal pushing forward. Like sharks they dove in and out of the fields of swaying grass.

Runners.

Stiffs were no doubt following the sharks which continued to move with unwavering doubt through the windy hills. Runners, of all things it had to be Runners, the thought of such unlucky favors being drawn are not only probably it was just about the most likely thing that could of happened. Yet still my heart races and my body trembles with fear as I cling to the branch and think of her face for the possible last time.

Serenity is only temporary.

My teeth chatter, loudly, and I force myself to shove my tongue between them; suffering the coppery taste of blood as it rushed down my throat. I could hear them in the distance and closing in. Living death did breath but not with ease, it was like heavy water and filled with a raspy demon with no sense of control. It was desperate and filled with a longing for me and everyone else like me.

I take my chances and lift my head to gaze at the hills before me. The grass a typhoon of fury and strength moving this way and that, Mother Nature doing her best to frighten off the freaks and protect me. It was a meaningless act of kindness and I truthfully appreciated it at this moment. I placed my lips to the bark of the branch and spoke a silent prayer, not being one for religious practices it was incredibly short and inappropriate but I am sure she understood. A few more moments and it would be over, at least part of me hoped it would. If there were enough of them they would probably destroy me long before I had a chance to return, so in my mind that was the only reassurance I needed to make it all okay.

It was not right, nothing had been right for years, but it was okay.

Before I had a chance to swallow the growing saliva the wind stopped. Out of thin air, thin air. It was as if a glass dome had been shut over the hills, the grass straightened and the world stood still. As did my sharks.

They stood there in the still fields, their bodies as stiff as the day they should have died. Hands clinched tight into fists, feet planted firmly in the ground like sturdy roots. Maybe I was dead already and this was my minds way of handling the situation, I was thankful but eventually the pain would show its face and nothing can hide that kind of hurt.

Give it a second...

Here it comes...

Anytime...

Come on.

They all began to move out, their mangled and strange bodies moving in the grass pushing and crushing the blades below their heavy feet. There was a lack of grace in their movements, they had lost the scent and now they scattered out in search of food. The world seemed to be filled with their stink, filling my nostrils and grabbing hold of my lungs with a powerful force.

Within the next few moments there was a stillness once more just as that single moment before. That cold dead stillness, Nature did not blow its great winds or give its warming sun to my bones. There was just nothing in that moment and that nothing carried the only peace I could think of at the moment.

Serenity is only temporary.