IV.
Once Elke journeyed through a crowded cloud of smoke
while on her great migration. It smelled like shale --
sharp and fragile, like it would break off in huge heavy
sheets.

The cloud went on for miles, a vastness of frantic
consumption forcing out the living things and burning
the eyes of any left behind. For days, Elke would fall
to sleep in its sweltering suffocation, and wake up in it,
too.

She tried to make peace with the smoke, reasoning with
it that they were both beasts made in fire, but the smoke
refused to listen. It was a slow, pervasive destruction un-
moved by Elke's quick brightness.

Instead, Elke spent those days dying slowly, drowning on
carbon monoxide, her heart unfueled and whimpering.

11/26/2013

Posted on 11/26/2013
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