Morning breaks and, tense, I stretch
looking out around me.
Tendrils of mist and fog consume the world.

Rising fast, my movement generates turmoil in the mass,
whorls which pulse and undulate away.
Figures move, bare shadows, snuffling softly in the mist
looking up they see me, fear and scatter.

I turn about and see none of the world I knew
there is this plane of vapor and no other.
There is no sky nor end that I can see
and seemingly no worth within this place.

I move then, cautious, I cannot see the ground.
Patches only sometimes clear then fade to mist.
There is more silence in this place than I can bear..
Where did all those shadows go?
Where are the people?
Should there not be something here?
Some remaining vestige or even dreg of life?

No answers come, no voices.
There is only the soughing of the mist
and my testing steps, to keep me company.

Slowly then I perceive a sound,
a murmur, then a rumble grows...
Steadily and stronger, rolling from the north.
The mist boils and cries out as it rises and is carried toward me.
A wall of force drives it forth and tears it to tatters.
I run, backward, away from it,
fighting my way through the fog around me
seeing no space nor sheltered place in which to hide.
Not knowing the nature of the force gave me no qualm,
nor the mist through which I ran,
it was the voice which followed,
dogging my every pace...
“The time has come, I rid this earth of you.
Run, run while your pitiful legs can stand it.
I have not condemned you, you have condemned yourselves,
your arrogance, your lust, your greed...
You are not worthy of the earth you were granted,
the air you breathed, the world which you forsook.
Run, run run..” The litany remained behind,
ever in my ear, just on the verge of recognition,
“Run, run run...”

I ran in terror, tried to speak, yet had no voice..
My words were gone, I made only frantic snuffling sounds,
lost into the mist and the roar which followed close behind...
I looked down and realized,
at once, too late,
my form was gone as well.
Abject terror took my mind and wits,
and as I ran I noticed other figures, other shadows,
running in blind fear as well.
Together as a seething mass we ran in the fog
watching the world as it was shredded from existence around us.
Figures all around me dropped, suddenly, and were gone.
Finally I was the last and I glimpsed the edge of the vastness just ahead.
My body ached and breath tore from my lungs
and as I jumped I was consumed and realized,
all at once,
this nameless terror which I feared
was not nameless.
It was the will of Man.

11/20/1999

Posted on 09/25/2001
Copyright © 2024 Leandra K Brossard