Get your own Free Home PageI see woods on fire. The trees are screaming. There is a burning deer, I can see it falling to the ground, its front legs give out. It screams silently, and it tries to cry, but it can't. A wolf howls and attacks the dying animal, its carnivorous instincts still working even as wave after wave of fire crash into it. It falls to the ground, writhing in pain as the searing heat singes off all of its hair. There are now many animals, all running towards me, trying to break free from the boiling hellish oven. Some make it. Most do not. Of those that break out, all but a few die of the heat within feet of breaking out of the fire. I run up to one, a young rabbit. It has made it away from the fire, and is now thrashing away at the ground. I take off my shirt, smother the writhing body, struggling to extinguish the unrelenting fire. It is done, but the image exposed when I take away the cloth is even more gruesome. The rabbit is still alive, but it is now charred and hairless. The impossible heat has shrunken and blackened its body, and the rabbit now struggles against the chafing straightjacket that its skin has become. For long seconds, it struggles against the black cage. And suddenly cracks come in the dark mass. The rabbit slows its jerky motions, but it will not stop. Quickly, the now present cracks break and burst into open cuts, blood suddenly mixing with the blackened powder over its body, forming a thick red-tinted tar coating. The oil pools around its body; the maimed creature twitches, sputters, and its mouth spews blood and vomit. Before my eyes, this small creature dies.
A drop of water lands on what is left of the body. Slowly, I realize it is my tear.
Back to Notes.
Back to Main Page.
Get your own Free Home Page