Hailstones and Snail Homes

as the cumulonimbi thrash & tear the sky, the quiet chill envelopes you & stops you in your tracks, snapping your head quick like a bird in the wild (looking around for predators), your eyes stare straight up & as a thousand little white heads of needles you first see the hailstones drop--- growing in size as they collect together in the sky they quicken their pace & up from your ditch, still slithering atop the ground, a bit distant from the freshwater that spawned you--- your shell still a bit wet, you drag your home along with you now with your neck cocked and your radula ripping this miniscule bits of pretzel that some stupid human dropped down splashing right next to you, while they were hiking one day--- as the ice chunks in the sky make their way closer & closer, you look around for any of your friends but they have all gone away, perhaps taking shelter under a fallen log or in a pile of wet moss on the shore of that now distant water’s edge--- but your own personal end of the world is heading right for you, and you continue gliding along so slowly on that one flat foot on a plain of mucus that you spend your time secreting--- all this will be gone in a split second, you feel, if you can’t find shelter quick---but as fast as you try to move, you curse in a single word of snailspeak those disgusting humans who consider you a good source of protein, in spain, the philippines, italy, greece & of course, france--- you also curse those christian humans who would consider you a symbol of laziness--- as if you had any other choice in the matter! & with your frustration level at a maximum, not able to move any quicker, sliming & sliming towards a fallen log off in the distance--- you will not reach your own personal promised land, for the catastrophic has entered your mental plane as the humongous ice balls which look like crashing planets begin to smash down all around you & without blinking your stick-up eyes, one hits the top of your shell cracking your whole self open, splashing & spreading your snail corpse out all over the muddy ground. it is all over so very quick.