The Deepening Fog

Tell me of this, the wheedle the warp, the beadle and snap, the warbling bird that sat above my head. I cricked my head and held it to the sky. The clouds were made of branches, crooked and beautiful. The ground was damp and dark, a mess of dead leaves. The light cut lines of dull grey through the air. I set off again, a weight in my boots that has seldom been there before, but neither a surprise to my heart. The cold was manageable as no wind scratched through the trunks of the trees. I held a simple pace, over hillock and round creek, the crystal light a deepened fog. I’d gone for at least an hour before I looked down at what I was wearing. A tattered suit and totally inappropriate shoes, a gun in my jacket pocket. I stopped and pulled it out, a black and frigid lump of metal, I had no idea how it had gotten there. But considering I had no idea how I had gotten where I was too, the heavy weapon in my possession was a small task at hand. S.H.

Tightrope Walker

Into the heart of darkness they proudly step, with boots like blocks of stone. Heady mind and sullied soul, the bleak becomes the march.
She pulled her jacket around feeble shoulders and re-secured her hood. Long black lashes like needles blinked the floating rain from her eyes. A wall of dark figures paraded on in front of her, too little she was deemed to take the full brunt. Her muddied shoes slipped and skated, any way but where she aimed them, her focus now drawn to basics of one foot in front of the other. Alone the people on either side of her sat huddled in their castles, marvelling at her spirit and cursing at her rancour. The night was beginning to die, the day not yet begun, and still she marched through cold and dark and on towards the sun. S.H.