Chapter 18: Carbon

A wristwatch bending in grass fields of vest and dusted farmland photographs. I printed images of long times ago with a million other old grandmothers; teeth twisting and squawking, reminders of the the last grey, wispy wisdom for over our world; as the teapot (wearily) whistles. The cold raindrops fainted down the black metal of the street lamp light away in the distance.
Dry leaves crunch under heavy boots with mud, shit, and old wet grass mashed into the sole ravines. Where steam in the cold from your breath encircles your head on a cloud (6 degrees fair in height). The television stopped working we had to get it repaired the whole week seemed to last years, and we never remembered how sad it got in here with cats and no electricity.
This was a photo of a tire swing hanging on the limb of a black tree, on a real, grey, cold day without snow. Dark grass with faint green hinting in the black; crows out of the corners of my eyes cackle and swoop, standing on top of the Old Barn.
The door to the empty farmhouse blows open and shut; grey hangs in the sky like cobwebs, thunder and old paper cups crumple and blow away; no one is around, not even you.
A bottle on the rusty bridge; glass rattles and wobbles in the icy gusts, and the small puddle of beer at the bottom waves back and forth; slowly freezes. A thin froth foams on the mouth. Everything is drying up, colder and colder by the minute.
At the edge of the forest, there is a highway. Anonymous cars scream past with the bright lights like mad eyes in the night...
In the trees, crouched, nobody waits, nothing happens. A sinister purple hand grabs the sky and pulls it like the skin on your legs, scratching against the needles of the tallest pine. The marble moon stares silently, floating in who knows what.
A hole where the heart of the trees would pound, now remains, severed roots surround it dark and centipedes crawl in it. The old paper cup blows by, crumpled and worn.
The plants have no expressions on the faces they do not have. Their life is a series of slow gestures, growing into a pose and drying up for want of anything to do. All the birds are gone, except for the crows and the owl, if it still exists. The ground is hellishly brimming with insects and vile worms, maggots and rotting logs.
The sky is gone, and all above is clear now. The forest is a room with the roof ripped off, and we can see forever into the distance of time and nothingness. The moon shouts back in white or grey mirror lights, waves and waits.