Nature. It encapsulated me in its hypnotic allure and beauty. I gazed around at the labyrinth of endless birch; a mausoleum of bark and branch. Crooked, ashen-brown outcrops rose from the ground as though one had attacked an insignificant morsel of food with a million toothpicks. The occasional cloud-like entity reeked of fresh mint writhed around them, in a blanket of warmth and secrecy. The ground was a dim, scarred warzone. Craters and hills of mud and muck were dissolving into fluid mirrors peppered across the land. Yet, there was the faintest presence of a faint melody of chirp and chatter passing an aura of peace permeating through all life present in the region.
Then a peculiar body passed into view. It was as though one of Picasso’s legendary paintings had been reincarnated into a form of flesh and blood. Stripes of orange, black and white brought a fresh new colour palette to the environment. Then, its jaws lunged at a lifeless cadaver and engulfed a rotting meaty mass into itself then pondering about for a moment before rejoicing with sounds of satisfied crunching as a crimson waterfall flowed down its lower half.
Then it stopped.
Fibres of muscle pulsated under the striped carpet the creature, as its neck rotated at an abysmally slow pace. It was as though time itself was chained to weights, struggling to move. Finally, with tensed fibres, its feet departed from the ground- almost like a bald eagle chasing the winds on its first flight, before coming down on a frail bipedal frame that I was unfortunate to inhabit.
Its pungent, musky odour coupled with an excruciating compressive force on my torso was enough to cloud all rational thought or resistive squirming. A pair of crystals with the pigmentation of carnelian stared at me with a blinding gaze. A dark, endless abyss opened to reveal a group of pure white harpoons. Strangely, fear had a taste- akin to that of slobber.
It was a peculiar sensation- to be bested by beasts of the unknown, to have to pay the price of curiosity and face a bitter and undesirable end. It had now been demonstrated that challenging creatures of nature was a futile and self-destructive endeavour. Alas, it was too late.
As my soul was drained by a ravenous and natural desire for nourishment, thoughts of being able to observe a true child of nature filled my mind.
