Human Things

The Clearing

It can be seen before the reader in their eyes of infinite imagination; the hills that spiral towards the golden clouds, the trees winding down to the sapphire coloured rivers. Within these trees a great many forms of life can be seen in their most noble of majesties and excellence.

These forms include giant creatures of kindness and calm, sleeping upon the rough of grass and stone, scuttling balls of fur; their houses, the trees as tall as church spires. Fish in the rivers, swimming through gems of purity, and insects crawling in the dirt with too many legs and eyes to mention. These movements of prowling, crawling, swimming, running, and indeed dozing, all happen in uniform motion and with an almost apparent amount of chaos.

Amongst this, and where my story shall be told, is a circular glade where the red sun shines upon; where it almost reflects of the silver stones, protruding among the beautifully fine, long, grass. Into this glade arrives a figure, disturbing the peace and beauty of the landscape it walks. This creature is not of the kindness and calm mentioned earlier of the other large animals present, but of tension and absolute pain. The noise of the glade increases rapidly as all a manner of creatures, big and small, run in fear, not of the figure, but of the horribleness it has brought.

This figure is but a silhouette to the reader, for it cannot be described as human nor of that of an animal. Every step is of dread and terror, every movement of muscle an atonement to horror, every breath taken, stolen from the surrounding peace and serenity. The golden light of the glade has begun to fade into a deep red of the setting of the sun, the rivers now the colour of rubies.

The darkness walks away from the glade down towards the river of red blood, ever shrouded in evil. And yet; as it looked at its self in the water it created inside itself empathy, then recognition, then fear, of everything it was, is and was going to be.

It ran. Faster and faster through the trees, which were getting denser and denser as it crashed its way across the valley. The sun continued to set, sinking into the horizon that the creature was now quickly approaching. It had scared itself by its own reflection, terrified by the emotion so strong from its body. In fear by its own anger, its own existence, and the flood of emotions shooting through its body.

And then it was gone, and forgotten, everything in remembrance of nothing, normality regained.