Mint

He was walking, as he often did, out back by the patch of peppermint he'd planted at the edge of the grass, a low hedge against the weeds, the dark a canopy over the hill, one of many, suddedn and high like Indian mounds, there in southwestern Pennsylvania, no stars in a moonless sky, no holes to let the light in, weighted clouds passing low and moving slowly toward the mountains, which hung black in the darkness a few miles to the east, bulking the landscape, with the sharp smell of mint rising all around, a slow, green mist spinning there with him in the night.