Pause

The grey clouds roll in from the southeast like a cumbersome beast a thick pewter fog smothering all a hollow silence menacing but devoid of violence. Face pales with blood draining ears straining The mass hovers almost low enough to touch I reach up Eerie wisps manifest like ghosts a writhing mass of souls mouths agape, eyes like holes voicelessly pleading, beseeching spectral hands reaching. Stumbling through the damp leaves past the ancient trees old and strong their roots run deep decades of secrets they must keep. Looking up I note a clutch of small birds huddled together birds of a feather they too feel the weight of the lowering cloud a damp woolen shroud motionless they sit knowing full well the danger of calling attention to themselves. Visibly they flinch as my gaze finds them fear blinds them slowly they shift their weight sidle closer to each other tiny bodies shudder I am impotent to reassure them. I descend to where the dock is hands deep in my pockets navigating the narrow pier I feel a claustrophobic fear The lake is like glass. I notice as I pass tiny minnows in the reeds my footfalls usually give them a start make them frantically dart Now they hang motionless en masse gills barely moving, eyes catatonic psychotic fish I find ironic The world seems in a trance Perhaps God has pushed the pause button on some existential remote I laugh noiselessly at my joke. All sound is smothered and slaughtered as the dense clouds drifts over the water. I see an occasional ghosty form swirling dark specter torn There's nothing I can do life's filled with endless rue I am as lost and powerless as they a non speaking role in this earthly play I drift along in a fog of my own heart like a stone. Silently a ring takes shape on the glass surface of the lake in its center a turtle snout forced up and out to breathe no doubt. A mathematically perfect circle created by a turtle Suddenly my reverie is ruptured heart lurching upward the immense solitude punctured like a balloon by the mocking call of a loon insane laughter at its best an avian jest Both the laughter and the turtle disappear and I would not be surprised if the world had been swallowed whole each and every soul and we find ourselves in the belly of the beast While my mind opens and expands like the petals of a lotus I wonder if anyone would even notice.