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.

Girl at the Bus Stop

I remember the dead leaves the most. Hundreds of thousands of them, strewn all over the street. Puddles of leaves, small hillocks of the little bastards. All forgotten and blown away. They made the footpath somewhat more difficult to navigate along I will concede, but the faces of them were brilliant. A hundred shades of brown. Who'd have thought a colour like that could be so eloquent?
So, Leeds it was, and towards the city centre that I rambled. Earphones in ears and thoughts being thought. If it hadn't of been for the smile I would have missed her completely. I only turned just in time to see it. Black hair too. Indescribable black hair. She was waiting at the bus stop alone and I was walking past it alone. I returned it of course, the smile, with a feeble attempt of my own, but wether she took in its full meaning I will be eternally uncertain of. Five paces now separated us, then ten. By the fifteenth I turned my eyes back in the direction of the bus stop, only for them to be greeted by a large movie poster behind a perspex sheet. A pair of shoes and a pair of ankles were just visible below the poster, in the space between the bottom edge of the bus shelter wall and the uneven ground. Apart from the familiar black hair I remember only one other thing. She was nice. I knew she was nice, i just knew it.
"Go back," said my stomach.
"You can't now," my brain said back. S.H.